In Nigeria, the average medical ambulance arrives at the scene of intense medical within 15-30 minutes, if the possibility of traffic is totally ignored. But for a person with a dying loved one, the waiting is quite long to hold on to someone’s life especially if there is no hope of getting help soon. Punch newspaper reported that between 10% -15% of the 1.6 million deaths registered in Nigeria each year occur in emergency departments. They either dead on arrival or not so much can be done.
This is the chasm that needs to be fixed in the health sector. That is why Japan International Cooperations Agency (JICA) in partnership with National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), and National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), and Ventures Park, designed the second cohort of the Next Innovation with Japan (NINJA) accelerator program to help health tech startups who are actively solving related problems.
After a series of screening processes, Eight Medical made it as a finalist in the program, and their aim is to remedy this gap by providing a platform for individuals to know what to do, who to call, and where to go in an emergency. It’s dubbed “911 for Africa”. Ibukun Tunde-oni (the founder), mentioned in one of his recent pitches, at the NINJA accelerator program’s demo day, that they provide access to urgent and emergency care by connecting emergency care responders on motorcycles and ambulances to users in distress in 10 minutes or less. You can check out their website at https://www.8medical.co.
Eight medical is known as a network of pre-hospital care professionals that provide urgent and emergency care when and where it matters most. They work round the clock to ensure you and your loved ones can get access to proper care in your time of need. During the program, they had recorded good traction with its range of services (standbys, ambulance transports & rescues) and have leveraged various stakeholder partnerships across Lagos to be able to attend or respond to an average of 10 emergency calls per day and 400 medical missions per month. They have also raised an initial yet undisclosed amount of funds
They are now seeking to further develop their technology, increase an already impressive revenue of over $500,000, and increase their responder network and fleet size by securing more provider partnerships with private and public stakeholders initially in Lagos and then across the rest of Nigeria.
They are currently fundraising for 1 million dollars. If you’d like to be a part of this, you can reach out to sato.shohei@jica.go.jp and support@theventurespark.com for more information.
