Nigeria’s healthcare system has continued to suffer major set-back especially in the area of public healthcare which has purportedly results in high mortality rate and other health challenges owing to high medical costs for patients.
However, telemedicine – the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology will help reduce medical costs for patients, experts say.
Telemedicine is a developing system to better help medical institutions to better use information and technology to treat patients in an efficient and cost effective manner.
“Telemedicine if well adopted by Nigerians will help to drastically reduce the cost of healthcare while simultaneously improving prompt access to healthcare,” said Adeyinka Adeniran, chief executive officer (CEO) Medflit in a recent interview.
“Telemedicine will reduce the cost of hospitalization, minimize patients patronage of quacks, reduce long-distance travel to access good healthcare, long queues at healthcare facilities and make healthcare attractive to people,” Adeniran said .
He stated that with N30, 000 minimum wages, most Nigerians are unable to afford quality healthcare as the minimum cost of medical care ranges between N30,000 and N70,000 per patient.
Medflit, Africa’s first integrated telemedicine platform allows patients to speak with doctors at lower cost and get medications from their nearest pharmacies.
According to Adeniran, running Medflit has been a challenging but a very rewarding journey as many Nigerians are now embracing its services.
“Telemedicine is still new to Nigerians. We have had over 1,000 patient consultations within Africa including Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Gambia and overseas – United Kingdom and United State of America early in the year,” he further said.
“The rapidly growing integrated telemedicine platform, Medflit is set to reach 1million Nigerians and expand to more rural communities by 2022,” he added.
Experts called on the government to drive more investments in telemedicine to help low and middle income Nigerians have access to good healthcare services in the country.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
