The Cure: Revolutionizing the Business of Healthcare in Africa
The Cure is a deep-dive podcast exploring what it takes to revolutionize the business of healthcare in Africa. Hosted by Temitope Coker, each episode features candid conversations with the people shaping the continent’s health systems, including visionary founders, investors, researchers, policymakers, and reformers.
We go beyond surface-level insights to unpack the real-world challenges, innovations, and investment strategies transforming care delivery across Africa. At the same time, we aim to infuse hope into the narrative by spotlighting the momentum and progress already unfolding across the continent.
From financing and infrastructure to research, technology, and policy, The Cure is the place for serious thinkers and doers who care about the future of African health.
The show is powered by TC Health, a platform providing healthcare and pharmaceutical insights in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Cure: Revolutionizing the Business of Healthcare in Africa
Who Shows Up When It All Goes Wrong, The Tech-Enabled System Behind Emergency Response in Africa- Part 1 | A Conversation With Folake Owodunni
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When emergencies happen, who actually shows up?
In this episode, Folake Owodunni (Emergency Response Africa) breaks down why emergency response is one of the biggest gaps in African healthcare and what it takes to fix it.
Because in those critical minutes, systems either work… or they don’t.
Season 2 is about Building the Rails and this is one of the most urgent.
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#TheCurePodcast #EmergencyResponse #AfricanHealthcare #TCHealth
Hello, healthcare enthusiasts, and welcome back to The Cure. This is the podcast where we're revolutionizing the business of healthcare in Africa one conversation at a time. I'm your host, Tim Topekoka, and in every episode, I sit down with the people that are shaping the future of healthcare on the continent. From founders to investors to policymakers and beyond. And our goal is very simple to infuse hope back into the narrative by spotlighting the progress and momentum that is already unfolding across the continent. At the heart of every episode is one key question: What does it take to revolutionize the African healthcare business model? All our insights are powered by TC Health, your trusted source for healthcare and pharmaceutical insights in sub-Saharan Africa. So let's get into today's episode. In season two, we're exploring what it takes to build the rails. And by rails, we mean the regulation, the financing, the infrastructure, the partnerships that turn a promising idea into reliable care at scale. Today's conversation sits at the very edge of that theme where the absence of those rails is the most visible and the most fatal. I'll paint a picture that most of you will be very familiar with. Late last year, a Lexus SUV traveling along the Lagos Ebado Expressway burst at tire and collided with a stationary truck near Danko. Two of the passengers died at the scene. The most famous one survived. The world watched as bystanders pulled him from the wreckage with no spinal precautions, no triage, no awareness of pre-hospital protocols, and drove him from the scene in another private car. There were no ambulances on site, there was no command center coordinating the response. Lagos State would later confirm that ambulances were dispatched, but after the fact. If the man in that vehicle had not been Anthony Joshua, the story would not have traveled. But that is the experience of every Nigerian who has had an accident, not just on that road, but on countless roads across the country. The cameras simply were just not rolling. Emergency response is the stress test for every other rail in a health system. It tells you whether financing covers that specific moment when a patient cannot shop around. It tells you whether public and private actors can move in real time and work together rather than moving at the speed of an MOU. It tells you whether data flows between the first responders, the paramedics, and the hospitals. And it tells you whether the public trusts the formal system enough to call it. If you can build the rails for emergency response, the same rails will carry maternal care, the same rails will carry road safety, the same rails will carry chronic disease management, the same rails will carry primary care referral. If you can't build those rails, then every other reform kind of sits on sand. And my guest today has spent the past seven years building those rails. Ola Kodini is the co-founder and CEO of Emergency Response Africa, a health tech company transforming how medical emergencies are managed across the continent, beginning in Nigeria. ERA operates the largest network of community first responders, ambulances, and verified emergency-ready hospitals in the country, connecting them through a proprietary dispatch platform and a 24-7 command center. Since its launch, ERA has managed over 4,500 medical emergencies, reduced response times by up to 80%, and built state-level partnerships with governments across multiple states. Faleka holds an MSc in Global Health and Development from University College London, a master's in business entrepreneurship and technology from the University of Waterloo, and is herself a certified first responder with the Canadian Red Cross. She is the 2024 Aurora Tech Award founder, um award winner, a Google Black Founders Fund recipient, a Raina Arnold Fellow with the Malago Foundation, and a Woman Lift Health Leadership Fellow. And for like I have history. So back in 2022, we co-authored a TC Health piece titled Emergency Medical Services in Nigeria, First Response No Longer a Last Resort. To date, it's one of our most read articles on the website. And that article diagnosed a system in crisis. And today, four years on, we're sitting down to ask what has actually changed, what hasn't changed, and what it takes to make sure the next call for help in Nigeria is answered. So Falaka, welcome to the cure.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Good to be here. And good to see you. I know.
SPEAKER_01We've been planning a coffee for like six months. This is pseudo coffee, but the real coffee is coming. There's mugs. Yeah, there's mugs. Whether there's coffee in them is questionable, but we'll have our real coffee soon. Deal. So before we get into our conversation, I want to take a few minutes to set the stage on the state of emergency medical services in Nigeria today. And I really invite you to join me just to talk about what has shifted since the 2022 article that we wrote and where some of those gaps remain. So I want to start with, you know, the cost of the gap. Before we get to where we are today, let's I want to look at the picture as it stood in 2022. Because I went back and read our article. And when we first wrote about this, we we looked into studies of major urban hospitals in Nigeria that found that up to 75% of emergency patients were either dead on arrival or died within six hours of arrival at the hospital, driven primarily by poor pre-hospital infrastructure and inadequate transportation to the hospital. We also looked at pediatric emergency departments, showed the same pattern. So most of the deaths occurring among patients who reported late with limited pre-hospital care. In 2019, ERA, Emergency Response Africa, did a national survey that showed that three out of four Nigerians had experienced at least one medical emergency in the past five years, and over a quarter had experienced more than four medical emergencies. And it ranged from acute chronic medical conditions and road traffic accidents as driving like the bulk of those emergencies. And when we looked at the wider sub-Saharan African picture in that paper, it wasn't that much better than Nigeria. So there was a World Bank study at the time that found that very few sub-Saharan African countries had a had developed a systematic or financially sustainable approach to emergency medical services at scale. Lagos State, the country's best funded system, if we're being real, recorded ambulance response times ranging from seven to sixty minutes, which is more than double the median urban response time in the United States. And then on the demand side, the picture was bleakest of all. So in that same ERA survey in 2019, only 3% of respondents reported calling an emergency number for ambulance service as the first step taken when they needed help in an emergency. 3%. And once they reached the hospital, 44% were rejected, had treatment delayed, or were referred elsewhere without any treatment, which led to about 64% reporting significant dissatisfaction with how their emergency was managed. And I remember looking through, because when we wrote the piece together, you shared the survey results with me. And I was, I was shocked, but I also had to question, you know, if I was in an emergency today, what as a Nigerian, what's my first instinct? Like, what's the first instinct of anyone in an emergency? And I'm so curious to, we'll get into it, but I would love to hear like how do you think these numbers have evolved since 2019, about seven years ago, to where we stand today?
SPEAKER_00So, I mean, a quick, quick fun story to tell you kind of how how we think. Um, a couple years ago, my dad um, I guess fell. I can't remember where he was, but he fell um and hurt his ankle. Now, it's not life-threatening, right? So, you know, one could argue, is this really an emergency? Um, but his instinct and what he did was to still somehow get in his car and drive himself to the hospital. He didn't even call to say, oh, this happened, come and help me, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, I remember being like, wow, if my own father takes that approach, what hope is there? It's so ingrained in us. And if you think about it from the lens of as a people, we have had to do so much for ourselves.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Whether it's power or water or building our own houses or manufacturing our own whatever it is, we're so used to that that we really don't rely on the systems that are available because we've learned that those systems can't be trusted.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, to your question, how have those numbers changed? I'm an optimist, especially when it comes to healthcare. Yeah. Um, so I would say that I'm sure they've changed, right? Um, and I'll use, and I'm sure we'll get into this, but I'll use one of the um programs that we did in partnership with the state government. And, you know, one of the outputs of that in in our report was that about 12% of people that were coming to the hospital had come in an ambulance. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Three topics. Now, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Now, but again, right, this is not, we're not talking like super empirical, you know, very robust, you know, evidence. We're talking a pilot in a particular location, you know, very sort of contained. Yeah, contained environment. But still, right? I choose hope because that tells me that okay, if you actually intervene, yeah, if you provide the service and if you intentionally communicate and if you remove the barriers that's usually stand in the way, um, you will see, you'll see people actually use it. You'll see a change in behavior. So, to your question, has it changed? I I think we're we're making progress. Um, does anybody really, really have the data to show? Yeah. I I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and that that reminds me of a conversation that we had with Dr. Nato last season, where he was like, you know, he he mentors a lot of students who always want to do a literature review, literature review, but he's like, no, do it on a collection, go and collect the data because that's what we need. And yes, we need people to to chronicle the data, especially in this space, just to kind of oh yeah. We we're only where we have half a picture, yeah, if even that, yeah, of what it actually looks like in for the average um Nigerian in an emergency.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I I will say like Neto is one of the special people that is an effective doer in terms of you know entrepreneurship and is also the researcher, the thinker able to articulate that not many of us can do that. And one thing I believe we need more of, and I don't want to like detour too much, is just collaboration between academia and entrepreneurs. Yeah, yeah. The reality is I want to do this work, I want to implement, I want to, you know, go into a space and create a system and run that system and deliver results.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But there are academics who are skilled at collecting the data and making sure that what we're doing is actually having the desired effect.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think what's missing and or what there just isn't enough of is the collaboration that actually allows the work that's being done to translate into evidence that can be used to inform other work and improve the work over time. So, I mean, uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, and the studies that we use are all academic studies, like the studies of major urban areas and hospitals, like that was done in academia. So I completely, I completely agree. Um, but let's look at where things stand closer to 2026. The Federal Road Safety Corps reported 5,421 road traffic deaths in Nigeria in 2024, a 7% increase from 5,081 the year before. In 2025, 10,446 crashes were recorded with 33,400 people injured. And behind, because you know, I could estimate these numbers and say, oh, about 33,000, but behind every one of these numbers is a person in distress, a family in distress, a window of minutes, and that window determines whether someone walks away or does not walk away from an accident. And I think all too often we see people not walking away, not because of the accident itself, but because of how they are what happens after. Um maternal and child mortality also tell a similar story because I do it is an emergency. Obstetric emergencies are one of the most common emergencies and I think a very important type of emergency, especially when we look at Nigeria's stats. The 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey showed that a Nigerian woman faces a 1 in 19 lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth compared with a 1 in 4,900 risk in high-income countries. Yeah. I think it's crazy.
SPEAKER_00I actually had to like your mind around 19 versus 4,000. Yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01It's if I even tried to do the mental math. Let's round up 4,900 to 5,000.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_0119 to 20. I can't do the mental math if you divide those, but it's like a hundredfold risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. Only 46% of births are attended by skilled healthcare worker. Nigeria still accounts for nearly 20% of global maternal deaths. Again. We're the largest contributor now.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't us a few years ago, but now it's all right.
SPEAKER_01How have we gotten worse? And when I see this 20%, I'm like, okay, so 20% of all the women in the world who die during childbirth or pregnancy.
SPEAKER_00And what percentage of all the women in the world are Nigerian?
SPEAKER_01It's not 20%. Yeah, it's not 20%. So every one if one in every five women who die during childbirth or pregnancy is Nigerian. Yeah. No, so sometimes I mean I wrote a piece way back in the day on maternal mortality in Nigeria. And I thought, okay, looking back at that piece, and then today, you know, things would have changed. I know there's some initiatives we'll talk about, like SEMong by the National Health Insurance Agency, but the numbers are staggering. Yeah. And I know one of your collaborations with state governments in Ogun State is in that version of the state. Specifically addressing that, absolutely. So I I can't wait to unpack that because it's truly it's very striking. Um the most rigorous data we have post-NEMSAS, the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System on actual usage comes from a 2023 cross-sectional study, um, which surveyed about 1,107, 1,177 residents of the federal capital territories in Abuja. In 93% of emergency cases, no call was made to EMS, emergency medical services at all. 93%. Ambulances were used to transport patients in only 1.8% of cases. Private or public transport was used in 95% of cases. Where an ambulance was called and arrived, the mean arrival time was 25.6 minutes, almost half an hour. Those numbers are it to me, it shows the massive gap in this subsector of healthcare to really not only make a difference, but honestly to scale a business model. If 1.8% of people call an ambulance today and 95% use either private or public transport, imagine being in an emergency and you go on public transport to get to the hospital, that gap is is huge.
SPEAKER_00And who's gonna build a business off of that? Where where's the demand? Yeah, yeah. We've not even talked about what proportion of the 1.8% that call can afford to pay when it is a paid service. Because let's also remember that what the government can provide free of charge is incredibly limited. And as with everything in the healthcare sector, the majority of service delivery ultimately gets provided by the private sector. So you, you know, there's there's that number, that 1.8, is still probably, you know, closer to 0. I don't know, five, say I'm at some. I'm calling a random number, but it just it just tells you that there is a big gap for sure. There is. And the opportunity is also huge. Yeah. Um, but the effort that it will take to get there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and most of these deaths are not caused by the medical event itself. They are caused by the gap that between the event and the hospital. Global research suggests that a functioning pre-hospital emergency system can reduce the risk of premature death by up to 25%. And to me, that is like the single highest leverage intervention that we're not making.
SPEAKER_00Interesting, there's one study that I saw, um, and I think this looked at both pre-hospital and um the hospital level intervention. Don't quote me, I can't remember for sure. Um, but it actually said that uh up to 54% of deaths could be prevented with access to timely emergency care. So if you think about the scale of that, right, in Nigeria, every year, over two million people are dying in different types of situations. So if you think about what that means, that tells you that if we had a strong functioning emergency response system end to end, you could potentially cut those numbers in half.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's over a million crazy. And when you think about, you know, some of the other interventions that are really meaningful in terms of saving lives, things like vaccines, you know, those types of like this, this is this is close to the par. Like it's on par. Absolutely. So again, for me, I say that, you know, emergency, emergency care and emergency response is is that part of the healthcare sector that nobody really thinks actively about until something has happened. Yes. And then when something happens, you're like, oh wow, there's a big gap here. Yeah. Okay, let's try to fix it. But because emergencies, it's you as one individual, you're not having an emergency, even if you have a chronic condition, maybe a few times a year. Yeah. But no individual truly is having an emergency every time. So it's one of those things that isn't top of mind daily, both at an individual level as well as a systems level.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's that's the first thing that we need to fix. Like we need to fundamentally focus on it and recognize, like you said, the connection between having that system and what it does for maternal health, what it does for chronic disease management, what it does for just every other part of the healthcare system.
SPEAKER_01And I think emergency medical response or systems are it's like the great equalizer. Because no matter where you sit on the income spectrum, absolutely, no matter where you are in the country, once you have an emergency, you can't fly yourself out in that very moment. God forgot that.
SPEAKER_00And even if you are holding 10 million naira in your hand as you are having the emergency, it can't save. I mean, someone might just take the money and run. Like, like the system is not there, the system is not there. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So to me, it's like it touches everyone equally. Um but let's talk about what has shifted since 2022. When we wrote that 2022 article, the Federal Ministry of Health had only just recently signed the MOU that operationalized NEMSAS, the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System. Um, four years on, NEMSAS supported structures exist in all 36 states and the federal capital territory. And they have established state emergency medical service and ambulance systems, 21 of those state systems that are fully operational. Um, the toll free number, 112, is now. Live as a national emergency line for the first time. And I wanted to pause and emphasize that if there's nothing else you take from this episode, 112, everyone should have that number memorized. I'm even talking to the whole production team. I'm talking to everybody watching and listening. If you are in Nigeria, 112, just in the same way you know 911 or 999 in the UK. We know everybody else is the emergency number. If they ask you what's the emergency number for Nigeria, what will you say? 112. So if there's nothing, even if you pause the episode right now and you never come back, 112 is what you should remember. No, but don't pause it. Because we have a lot of amazing things to say. Um, but yeah, free emergency medical services are available across 30 states, and we've seen a 304% rise in emergency transport beneficiaries year on year from less than 3,000 to over 11,000. Obviously, in a country of over 200 million people, maybe over 220 million people, 11,000 is peanuts, but peanuts but progress, momentum. Um I also want to talk about the NHIA that has launched a dedicated comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care program or SEMonc. I've never heard it say it's been said out loud. I always read articles about it. Is it SEMOC or C-E-M-O-N-C? Like, I've heard it said C Monk. C Monk? Yeah. Okay. C Monk. Also remember C Monk. As of late 2025, more than 11,200 women with obstetric emergencies had been successfully managed at NHIA endorsed CMONC facilities. And this is the first time a federal financing rail has been built specifically to cover emergency obstetric services, even if it has not been extended to general pre-hospital care, or but this I do feel like spotlighting the progress that has been made by the NHIA with this specific program is very, very important. Um, the National Health Insurance Authority Act of May 2022, also something that happened while or very soon after we were writing this piece. That was a very like timely piece. It was timely. You know how people say, oh, this is timely, but that was a very timely piece. Um it made health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians and legal residents, creating the legal foundation for a financing rail that pre-hospital care can eventually plug into. And I think we were just discussing this before we started recording of how the basic healthcare um provision fund, the BHCPF, is the umbrella that provides care. Um the NHIA is the delivery mechanism under that mechanism.
SPEAKER_00One of the gateways as the NCAA. Under that mechanism. Yeah. Um as is NEMSAS, another one. And NEMSAS and NCDC is another one. Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_01So we have the BHCPF, maybe we'll draw a nice picture, umbrella. We have NEMSAS, which provides covers the care from the emergency to you reach the hospital. We have the NHIA that covers the care once you get to the hospital. We have NCDC.
SPEAKER_00I think there's still some working or adjustment happening there.
SPEAKER_01So on paper, or in re in in um ideally, that's what the system is. And then the NCDC that responds to kind of public health you know, epidemics, pandemics, public health emergencies. So we have rails, guys. Um, they just need to be further developed and further built. Um, what has still not shifted? Nigeria has roughly 0.4 ambulances per 100,000 people. I think the number was about 500 ambulances across the country, roughly ish ballpark, but for again a population of 200 million. 200 200 plus million. Nobody ever knows the exact, it's like it's over 200 million, likely over 220 million. That is a very small number. The WHO recommends one per 10,000 people.
SPEAKER_00Um I think for lower middle income countries, they recommend about one per 50,000. Okay. Some you'll see some numbers that even go to one to a hundred thousand. I guess that's being like, let's allow for some progress. But I think if you take Nigeria's number and kind of you know, best estimate, our ratio is more like one to two hundred and fifty thousand people. So even at, you know, we're we're we're way off you know where we need to be. Yeah right. And that's not that's just talking about the ambulances. It doesn't talk about the system, the communications, the personnel, all the things that actually make a system work. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And just yesterday, um, President Mola Ahmed Tinabu, um, so on the 29th of May 2026, for everyone who it's probably listening to this episode after the fact, um, it launched 145 tricycle ambulances aimed at improving emergency health services across the country. Um, I think it's important to expand our ambulance structure. Um so things are happening, but that gap of real ambulances, fully fitted ambulances that can effectively respond to the type of emergencies we see, especially on our roads, that gap is still there. And in our 2022 article, we argued that communication was the binding constraint. So caresekers did not know who to call. The responders, the first responders, the paramedics could not reach the receiving hospitals, the hospitals could not prepare for inbound patients, they didn't know who was coming in. You show up and they're like, ah, okay, let's figure this out. Or they say no and they reject patients. Um, the 2023 data suggests that constraint has loosened in places because now we have one, one, two. Um, but there's still a lot to be done. Um, and I wanted to spend some time talking about why this is a build the rails episode because our season two theme is building the rails. And for me, emergency medical services are a crucial rail in any healthcare system. Emergency medical services existed in Nigeria long before ERA. LEGO State established LASAM bus in 2001. Federal Road Safety operates a fleet of vehicles, even faith-based hospitals run their own informal transport networks. The challenge is not that the category didn't really exist. I think it's that the challenge is that it has been fragmented. Fragmentation is a word, I think, in uh in the DHN WhatsApp group. I feel was it last week? Yeah, this week. Fragmentation, fragmentation. Every problem can be boiled down to fragmentation. Yep. Um it's concentrated in Lagos, a lot of the infrastructure of emergency response. And so there's not the rails are there, but they're not enough to allow it to function as a coordinated service and scale across the country. And so ERA's work and the work that's being done alongside it by NemSAS, by state governments, by funders, um, is the closest the country has come to actually consistently building those rails. And that's exactly what our conversation today is about. So I want to start with you before we go into you know deep diving what it actually takes to build a dependable emergency response system. I do want to start with your background, your backstory. You trained as a global health professional at UCL, you built a career in communications and change management at Open Text and at the University of Waterloo before stepping into health tech. And I would love you to take us back. What was that moment where this work stopped being like an idea? And it was like, okay, I have to actually build it.
SPEAKER_00Good question. Um, like you said, I was working in communications in a tech company. At the same time, I was um completing a second master's program in entrepreneurship at a university that has a fantastic reputation for its school of engineering and you know, technology. Um so, in some ways, I was very surrounded by technology. Um and I think in the context of that program, you know, I'd always had it in the back of my mind that I want to do something in healthcare. I want to solve a meaningful problem in healthcare. Um, and because I had had the experience of calling 911 um for my son, this happened 2017. You know, I it was one of those experiences that stays with you, right? That sense of I could call 911 because I'm in Canada.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they picked up the phone, the paramedics showed up, they came with all their equipment, they attended to him. But I think the part that struck me the most was it turned out to be minor, like non-life threatening. And it was resolved there in the living room of my apartment. And what they said to me was listen, you could, you know, come in the ambulance and go with us to the ER and probably end up spending a few hours waiting, because that's one of the unfortunate realities. Yeah. Or you could, you know, do X, Y, and Z and, you know, in the morning go see your doctor. And I think what that opened my eyes to see was if it was life-threatening, he would have been okay because the intervention was there and it was timely. Because it's non-life threatening, he's still okay. But also, I don't have to go and clog up other parts of the healthcare system. And so I can attend to him in a different way. You know, he gets what he needs right now, and then we get into, you know, primary health care, you know, as as needed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so I think that experience was really very eye-opening. And so when I started to think about, okay, I know I want to do something in healthcare, I want to, you know, solve a tangible problem. That kept coming back to me because I knew that if the same situation had happened in Nigeria, first of all, I wouldn't even know who to call.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Then, you know, my husband and I lived in this apartment building where all the cars would park. And so I, you know, imagine myself going to knock on my neighbor's door, please come and move your car so that we can go to the hospital, you know, and this is something we can't all relate with. You know, and then I'm thinking, okay, the hospital that's closest to our estate, they have a very bad reputation. They say if you enter alive, you don't come out alive. So do I really want to take my child there, or maybe I should go somewhere else? But what if the journey is long or they say they can't, you know. So thinking through all that could have happened made it clear that there was something, there was an opportunity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, interestingly, one of the first people that I spoke to was Dr. Ola Brown, um, flying doctors um and Healthcap, um, who's actually one of our investors now. Um, you know, but I remember, you know, having a conversation with her and she was very, very candid. She was like, look, this is a massive problem. There's a massive need, um, but a really tiny market. And the reason that she had been so successful providing, you know, air ambulance services was because she found the lucrative within that really tiny market and served them. I was talking about, oh, I want to do what will serve everybody, you know, I want, you know, whether you can afford it or you cannot afford it, you know. Um, and and that I think that decision, that approach meant that I was going to have a very long, difficult journey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so to an extent, I had a sense of what I was signing up for. Okay. Um, but I'm not sure that I fully knew. If you know the whole picture, you don't, you don't, you don't go in necessarily. Exactly. Um, but I think what then said, you know, what then made it clear that okay, this is this is not just an idea now, um, is that my co-founder and I got someone to listen to us and say, I like what you guys are doing. Here's some money. And I'm like, ah, okay, they've given us the money. Now we have to do the work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, but I think because of the context in which we were in that university, um, there were a lot of pitch competitions, you know, those types of opportunities. And I didn't honestly go in pitching because I wanted someone to give me money. Like I said, when they said they were going to give me money, I was surprised. Yeah. Um, it was more so there's this thing and there's this problem, and there's this solution that we think can solve the problem. Does it hold weight? Is it valid? Yeah. And so it's almost like going out and looking for validation that is there really something here? And so when, you know, we had a few, this is great. Yeah. We think this is gonna be a very meaningful opportunity. Go and figure out, you know, what the next step is. Here's, you know, I don't know, 20k or whatever. Um, then it was like, okay, we have to actually do some work.
SPEAKER_01So I'm so curious how you because you mentioned your your conversation with Dr. Ola Brown, who we we are trying to get on this show. She's a very hard worker. It's busy to nail down. But this is me unofficially, officially shooting my shot. There you go. Um, but your conversation with her, where she mentioned, okay, this is how I made it work, but it's actually a very tiny market. How did that transition to her um Healthcap Africa now being one of your investors? Like what shifted in what you were able to kind of show or the the different perspective that you were able to provide, or even data that you were able to show from your initial years to then convert her from a skeptic to an investor? I mean, I can't speak for her.
SPEAKER_00Like, well, I I don't know, you know, all that all that she thought. But I think that, you know, better than probably any other investor at the time, she understood what the need was and that, you know, if somehow it could be cracked business model-wise, um, then there's huge potential.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, was it gonna the question was, is it gonna be us? Is it gonna be somebody else? Is it gonna be now? Is it gonna be later? You know, I think those are the questions that every investor is trying to answer. And and effectively they're taking a bet, right? So the way I see it, she cannot have known what will happen two years, three years down the line. Yeah, but I assume that she looked at what we were doing and said, okay, these people seem serious. They seem like, you know, they are determined whether I know how hard the market is, yeah, but maybe there's something they can do. So I mean, when you have her, I'll say when because I believe it will happen. Um, when you have her on, you can ask. Yeah. Maybe she'll, maybe she'll shed more light.
SPEAKER_01But it's also interesting to have an investor who's played in the space, you know. So I think there's there's some of that that that kind of interplays. Um, my next question is you got Red Cross first responder certified yourself. Why was it important for you to put your own hands on the work before designing the company around emergency medical services?
SPEAKER_00So I think there were two reasons. Um, one was I'm not a clinician. So I studied public health. I love, you know, thinking in systems and thinking about all the intersections between things. Um, but I don't, I don't treat patients, right? I don't intervene if something is happening. Like everybody around me, don't collapse. I mean, sure, I can I can do CPR. But you know what I mean, right? Like I'm not, I'm not hands-on with patients. And I think that um when I thought about what it was that we were trying to build, I felt like, who are you to, you know, try to create something where you like you're not even, in quote, the one doing that. Now, in hindsight, I think it's you know, it's just a mindset thing. I I don't today, I don't believe you have to, in quote, be the technical whatever of whatever you're trying to set up. I think there are two different skill sets. I think there's a lot of value and insight that you gain from being hands-on that you know you can't, you can't replicate by taking a course. But I also did not, and maybe this is just me personally, I don't like to go into things without feeling like I have some form of insight and some capacity to grasp the experience of the people that are going to be doing the work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and so, you know, even now the truth is, I mean, again, I'm not the one riding in the ambulance. You know, our team does that and they're amazing, truly, truly amazing. I could, I could not do what they do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. But I also felt like I don't want to be so far removed from how they have to do their work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, how do I support them? How do I make sure that we're creating an organization that actually meets their needs and enables them to do their best work? So I think that's that was really the driver for that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I love that. Um, and then one last personal question before we get into you know the system as a whole. You've described yourself publicly as a faith-driven entrepreneur. What does that actually mean inside a company where every operational decision is is actually life or death? And how has it shaped the way you raise capital, the way you lead your team, the way you show up as a founder? I'm very curious.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um so I don't look at what we do and think, oh my gosh, everything is life or death. It is, um, but the reality is um emergencies will always happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, not every death is preventable, right? What is our job? Our job is to be there and give each and every emergency patient their best possible chance of survival. And I think because that is the goal, that is the mindset, how we translate that is one of our values, excellence, right? So that means arriving on time. It means having all the equipment we're supposed to have, it means being well trained, it means showing empathy. Because sometimes it's not just the clinical work, it's it's helping people understand that yes, this is a vulnerable time for you, but we're here. Yeah. So you can breathe, you know, you can breathe easier. So I think like, you know, first thing is really just we don't control life and death. That that that's that's part of being a faith-driven entrepreneur. 100%. God is in control.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But He has given us the opportunity, the mission to be a part of contributing to life. And so, how do we do that excellently? I think the second thing when it comes to being a faith-driven entrepreneur is I've had to learn um how to take steps when there's uncertainty. Um and I mean, you know, they they say kind of entrepreneurial personalities, you know, the Richard Bransons of the world, you know, wild and free or whatever, wild, wild. That is not me. I um I like to think through things, I like to, you know, sort of explore all the angles and critique and the the downside of that that can be very useful, especially in in an area where you are dealing with people's lives. Yeah. Um, but the downside is paralysis can happen very, very easily. Like is we don't, we don't, we don't have enough information, we can't do anything. No, that that doesn't work in entrepreneurship, right? So I think that the faith side of it has really, really, really taught me and forced me to be able to recognize when fear is the driving force and and put it in the right place. Yeah. So fear is an indicator. It's an indicator that maybe I don't have all the information, or it's an indicator that you know, maybe there's you know something that needs to be addressed. But it is that that's all it is. It's an indicator. It it cannot be in the driving seat. I cannot be led by it. So I think for me, um being a faith-driven entrepreneur has really meant like, okay, I can take a step, I can take a risk, um, I can, you know, know what I know and know what I don't know and be at peace that you know what, this is part of the journey of entrepreneurship. And and you know, I've had the opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs that are in that, you know, faith-driven movement. I know I've I've you know even done an interview. There's like this faith-driven investor movement. So, you know, it's been quite good to make those connections. Um, I don't know that I've necessarily had like a faith-driven investor approach or anything like that. Yeah. Um, but personally, certainly as an entrepreneur, as a leader, how I show up for my team. I mean, you can talk to my team. I don't, I always like, I don't, I every every opportunity I get, I don't demean. I don't, I, you know, I'm very intentional about the culture that we have. Let it be a place where people can come to work and they can be okay at work. They, they, you know, they know that they're contributing to something meaningful and that that will be recognized.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I love that. I love what you said specifically about fear. Um, I think it's something a lot of entrepreneurs and even just even people who maybe feel like they're maybe in an industry that they're not as like, oh, imposter syndrome, et cetera. I think fear comes up a lot. I was reading a devotional the other day and it said. Fear is the result of the human capacity to apply our knowledge into the future. So without our capacity to fear, if you willed your fear away, you would also will your hope away. Because on a spectrum, hope allows you to apply your knowledge into the future that things could actually look good. And you said you're an optimist. The flip side is fear. And I think a lot of the times we wanted us like fear should just disappear. But your hope would disappear as well.
SPEAKER_00So I think recognizing that there is a purpose to fear and it is an indicator of something, yeah, has really helped. Like just don't see it as a it's not a bad thing, it is part of the human condition, like you've said. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. So I wanted to use our 2022 article as a deliberate scorecard for this episode. We made three big arguments in that piece, and I want to walk through each of those and kind of test each one against like what you've seen in the actual field in the last four years. So the first argument was diagnostic. We said pre-hospital mortality was driven by the absence of trained responders, working ambulances, and a clear pathway to a receiving hospital. Four years later, do you think this diagnosis still holds or where have things changed? You know, we saw that 93% stat of emergency cases never resulted in EMS call versus the 1.8% stat that we now know could even be smaller. Does that match what ERA sees in the field today? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I I think it's in that regard, I wouldn't say very much has changed. Um we still only have one accredited institution training paramedics. Um we have some other schools, or like usually like some schools of technology that are training, you know, quote unquote EMT's paramedics. Um, but we've seen that the quality is different. Yeah. So that's that's very much still a gap. Um I would argue that the number of ambulances has even shrunk. Um because whereas four years ago, um, it seemed to be easier to identify and you know assess and onboard ambulances to our network, um, that has gotten much, much harder, especially in the last two years. And it's not that surprising, right? When you think about what has happened with the economy, yeah, um, how much more expensive it's gotten to operate a vehicle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and when you think about the issue around the demand or the missing demand, and now I'm talking about the paid demand. Um, for a lot of partners or hospitals or individuals that own ambulances, you start to ask yourself a question is this a worthwhile investment? Right? Because if I have the vehicle, but I'm not using it to transport patients or I'm only using it for a few patients and I cannot run it profitably, then why do I have it? Which means that the day that it breaks down and you need to replace the axle or, you know, I don't know, one million naira, you're going to be asking yourself, how much does this thing even make for me? Yeah. Not because there isn't a need for them, but because the market part of it, the demand part of it, the ability to sustain it has become much, much more difficult.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then I think the communication challenge remains. Um, on the one hand, right, mobile penetration has gone up. Um, access to internet has also gone up. Yeah. Um, you know, more than ever, people are connected. Um, but communication is also about awareness, right? So you were saying earlier, one, one, two, people should know the number, people should know the number. True. Absolutely. A lot of people don't know the number.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But part of it is also trust, right? So you have situations where people will call and they will get what they need. But there are equally as many situations where people will call and not get what they need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so, because of the lack of trust, the even the instinct to call has not taken root.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so has anything changed in that regard? I would say no. I I don't think we've seen significant improvement across those areas. Yeah. Um, there's still a lot of work to do, for sure. For sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think that point around trust is so important to everything we're discussing today because you can get a hundred thousand ambulances, you can, you know, get more tricycle ambulances, air ambulances. But when you dial 112, do you trust that someone is coming? Because if I'm in the US or if I'm in the UK and I dial 911 or 999, I instinctively trust or intuitively trust that someone is gonna show up. If they're late, you'll be surprised. Yeah, but I trust the outcome of that interaction. And I think that gap between where we are now and getting to that that level of trust is you can't like um uh supersede or what's what you can't leap, but you can't leap through that gap. That gap is built by every single call that is answered consistently, and someone can tell a story.
SPEAKER_00But here's part of I totally agree, right? Being able to tell that story because that's what people will refer, right? Yeah. I call one one two and they answered, oh yes. Ah no, the answer, eh, really, okay, okay, next time, right? Those things make a difference. Yeah. But what, and this is why I love systems, right? Because you have to see all the connections.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00When we talk about capacity building and the trained responders, it's very easy for us to think about the people that are in the field. What about the people that are answering the calls? Don't forget the sister, the 911s and the 999s, they have programs for emergency medical dispatchers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00These are people who are trained to be able to pick up the phone and triage effectively and provide support, basic first aid over-the-phone support that you know, a child who is with a collapsed parent can follow some instructions, you know, that type of thing. Yeah. That is a skill set. Yeah. And that is a skill set that has to be trained and developed. And I know even for us, we've had to do that in-house.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00In other words, I have bought principles of emergency medical dispatch, that is the textbook. And we have trained ourselves in-house to be able to do that. And we have had the opportunity to start to train others within the public sector to be able to do that. But that's part of the trust building.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because if somebody calls, right, your toll-free number and somebody answers, hello, I mean, like instantly, you're like, um, am I am I speaking with you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Immediately trust is broken. Or they pick up and they sound like they're sleeping.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we're human, right? Like, but that this is where training comes in, and this is where accountability comes in. And this is stuff that we have had to build ourselves and still build ourselves to do, right? So just saying that, you know, trust is not just at the level of the response that is happening in that moment, it starts with all of the core systems and people and resources that make it possible for that moment to actually happen seamlessly.
SPEAKER_01I would like to ask a follow-up question because I'm very curious about the actual training of emergency response dispatchers. You bought that principles of emergency.
SPEAKER_00This was like 2020.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That I presume is an internationally developed guideline. When you said immediately, like if you call and someone is like, hello, my first thought was I've had really bad customer service experiences in Nigeria. I I actually had one like in the last week where I ordered a desk for the space and I got ghosted. Um what have you had to adapt to the local context when you're training an emergency response dispatcher? Like there's there there is something unique about our culture. Like if someone elderly calls the line, how do you speak to that person? Because I'm sure in the midst of an emergency, someone goes, ah, I'm not your mate. Which is totally possible.
SPEAKER_00Um so I I I'll I'm struggling to sort of put my thoughts together, but I'll say, I'll try to say a couple of things. Um first is honestly, we do have amazing people that do the work. Like we have a small, small, you know, they say small but mighty team. Um, and our medical dispatchers, I've listened to the calls where, you know, the person calls, they have a standard response. You reached emergency response Africa, what is your emergency? And then instantly the person on the other end is like, uh, you know, and maybe they start speaking Yoruba or they start speaking in pidgin. Um, and so they instinctively know to adjust their language, to simplify, or if they speak the language, to switch to the local language, and you can instantly hear the change, the warmth from the person that's calling, because it's like, oh, okay, I'm talking to somebody that understands me. You know, me to I understand them. That's one. But then the empathy that then they convey, right, also makes a world of difference in terms of how the communication flows. Yeah. I think what where we are now, like individually and you know, thinking about how we scale our training is how do you codify those types of things, right? Those things are very human instincts. Um, you have a process, you have a script, yeah, you have your um, you know, your triage protocol, you have your algorithms, the things that you follow in order to effectively get to the right response.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But something comes up and culturally, you know, you can tell that you're talking to an elderly person and that person is terrified.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How do you reassure them? How do you treat them like your mother? Um, and and this is why, you know, I will always, always, always, you know, as much as possible, give credit to my team because we have some truly remarkable testimonials. In fact, one person said that that the way that these people treated my mother, it was like it was their own mother. You know, they were just so overjoyed, so happy. And so I think, you know, it's one thing to train on the core skills of how do you triage effectively? What should your script look like? What are the common um types of emergencies that you see and what is the flow as you know, you kind of find out more information and you progress? Um, it's another thing to take the human side of it and and and codify that. And I feel like that is actually the phase that we are now. Like, how do you, okay, empathy is one of our core values as an organization and and they do a great job, you know, demonstrating it. But how do you go from, okay, this person does a phenomenal job to it being that consistent experience that we can train other people to do? Because ideally, if you call 112, right, you want to know that the person that's gonna pick up, whether it's a Friday at 8:45 p.m. or Tuesday at, you know, right at the beginning of shift, you want to know that you're gonna get the same consistent, positive, empathetic experience. Yeah. And I think that going back to the conversation around trust, that is what's missing. Yeah. So you might call on Tuesday when the person is fresh, they've just come in, they're ready to take on the world, and they give you a great experience. And then you call them Friday night and they should be at home, but they're here because somebody called them into work and you get something entirely different. So there's a lot of work to do.
SPEAKER_01I keep saying I'm envisioning a future where you develop a adapted guide for Nigeria or West Africa. Yes, which is a good idea. Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I mean, one of the things that we have started, but I would say on a smaller scale, is just training broadly, right? So capacity building. So we do a lot of first aid training. We're um now an American Heart Association um uh accredited training site. So we also provide like, you know, basic life support certified by AHA. Um, like I said, we've done you know emergency medical dispatch training off of you know what we've developed and adapted. Um, and we've also developed a curriculum for community-based first responders, right? So now we're not talking about people who are doing this as professionals, we're talking about anybody like you, well, you and I or you know, whoever saying, hey, I want to be a first responder in my community. I want to be able to be that first point of call before an ambulance gets here. Or maybe I live in one of those hard-to-reach areas and the ambulance is not coming anytime soon, right? So I want to be that first step. So we developed, we actually partnered with the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, their uh paramedic program, and we developed a community-based first responder curriculum. So we've done a lot of great sort of foundational work. Definitely the vision is to really have a full-fledged academy where we can train EMTs, we can train paramedics, we can train dispatchers, even the drivers of ambulances, yeah, they need specific training to make sure that A, they keep the vehicle safe, but most importantly, the patient that is rolling around inside the vehicle is also safe, right? So absolutely. The vision is there. It's there.
SPEAKER_01We just need We're getting to the vision. Yeah, yeah. Um, so our second argument from the paper was about policy. That NEMSAS MOU had been signed, I think, weeks before we published the piece. The NHIA Act was about a month away after we published. We have the basic healthcare provision fund that now has like a the 5% emergency allocation. Um, walk us through that policy layer. How have those, how have you seen those things evolved? How do you see NemSAS today? Where do you see things need to move forward and things like that?
SPEAKER_00So um I've always believed that policy isn't our problem. Um, I know for a fact that, you know, there's a lot more to policy than, you know, kind of the normal us that are on the outside of government see. Um, but I do believe that policy isn't our problem. Um we create things, they may not be perfect, but they they are often a good start.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um the challenge is often the gap between policy and implementation, right? Um, and sometimes what happens is the policy is not structured in a way that gives it the necessary legs to be able to effectively implement. Um, and I know this from just having engaged quite closely with NEMSAS, especially over the past year. Yeah. Um, it is in principle an incredible opportunity for Nigeria. Um, and I'm happy to see, you know, a bunch of the work that's been done and the progress that's been made. Um, I'll say very quickly that I think as Nigerians, it's very easy for us to bash our government. Yeah. Um and you know, sometimes we're justified, but most of the time, yeah, we have to recognize that it is really hard to try to turn a ship around. Yeah. A 220 million, whatever the population is, ship that has been going in one direction for a really long time. So, regardless of who you are in leadership, it's it's not an easy task.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so on the basis of that, you know, I will say that I'm happy to see some of the work that's been done, the initiatives, the efforts, you know, the numbers that have been reported. Yeah. Um at the same time, you know, it's one thing to have NEMSAS. It's another thing for NemSAS to actually have the authority to do certain things. And if you think about the nature of Nigeria, our federal, federal structure, right? Um, you have the federal ministry of health and social welfare that is in charge of certain sort of core um national programs. Yeah. But at the end of the day, the delivery of healthcare services to the patient happens at a state level and is within very much the control of the state. And so what you have is unless the federal government has, you know, I guess carot and stick to effectively corral states to do what they want, um, implementation will always be, you know, kind of lumpy. And I think that's that's I think that's the reality of healthcare broadly. Yeah. And it's no different within emergency services. So policy isn't necessarily our problem. I think maybe the only problem I would say with policy is that we don't always do the stuff, do sufficient work to of making sure it's rooted in data, right? Going back to the earlier conversation we were having about the need for actual, like on-the-ground, tangible data. But even when the policy is there, how do you structure it so that the the bodies that are responsible for implementing actually have the authority to do it, they have the resources to do it. I mean, if you say you want to change emergency services in a country like Nigeria with 220 million people, you're not going to do it with a small bag of money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? You're not going to do it with only the public sector.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everybody has to be involved and it has to work in a way that is meaningful for everybody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so the work, I think there's efforts being made, and I think it's important that we acknowledge and validate those efforts. Um, at the same time, could things move faster? Could things be more, you know, structured or open or more accessible, especially to the private sector, who will continue to deliver the bulk of services. Yeah. Um, for sure. There's there's a there's a gap there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I completely agree. Um the third argument was about communication. We said the solution had to be a single, memorable number.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I think that has been done. It had to be location driven and that it had to enable real-time data flow between responders and hospitals.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I would love you to talk us through the ERA stack. So, Emergency Response Africa is a health tech company. There is technology connecting your first responders to your um command center or control center, like your your dispatchers, to hospitals that you have kind of pre-accredited or pre-evaluated to be receiving hospitals. Walk us through, like take us inside the command center, take us inside the technology stack that you've built and how it one operates along this continuum of communication. But just generally, I think our listeners would love to know how it works.
SPEAKER_00So I'll start with a quick random story. I um went to a 911 uh dispatch center in somewhere in Canada, in Ontario, um, just as part of, you know, familiarizing myself with the space and seeing how they let you in?
SPEAKER_01Like you just walk in?
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no. Someone had to take me in. Okay. Um yeah, so one of our advisors, actually Angel Investors at the time, had a friend who, you know, was in charge of one of those centers. And so he took us in for a tour. Um, and I remember walking into the command center and thinking, this is what this is this is what ours is going to look like. You know, you had the desks, you had the massive screens, and things were flashing and people were talking. It was it was fantastic. So our command center is nothing like that. Um, it is very, very simple. Um and I think that it reflects our environment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, the reality is, yes, we could go and look for money to get the bells and the whistles. Yeah. Um, but it didn't take us long to realize that the problems we're solving are very, very low-level, very basic problems. We're trying to coordinate fragmentation, right? Um, and so our command center today, simple room in our office. Yes, you have a few screens. Um, you have the dispatchers and they're sitting, you know, seated, you know, picking up the calls. Um, but the way that the system works is it's designed to connect all the stakeholders as seamlessly as possible.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What that means is we have a toll-free number. Unfortunately, it is not a three-digit, you know, super memorable. It's like it's like 08,000 call C-A-L-L-E-R-A. Yeah. So that's like the best you can do as far as like memorizing it. Um, but that's that's again, right, part of the realities of our environment. Ideally, you don't need, I don't, I shouldn't need to have a number.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you called 112, or let's say you're in Lagos 767, because ideally, we should have a partnership that allows them to say, hey, you guys happen to be the closest to this case, we're going to send it to you, right? That's that's the ideal state. And that's what you see in other emergency services. So again, we know we're not in ideal state, we'll keep doing what we're doing. Um, so we do have that toll free number. But the second way that people can reach Us is through APIs. So we have partnerships with insurers, with other organizations who have their own mobile apps. Okay. And because of the nature of what they do, they would like to have like an emergency button within their app.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so we're able to supply APIs that allow them to have an emergency button and basically an emergency request process within their own application. And so their users can, excuse me, simply push that button and get the help they need without ever having to leave that partner's application. Right. So those are really the two core ways that people will reach us today. And so once that comes in into our command center, our dispatchers are able to see it on their dispatch application. And it works, I would say, a lot like kind of an Uber, you know, style structure, right? So they go through their triage process, um, and then the system has uh algorithms that basically allow it to recommend the appropriate response. Yeah. So if somebody is, I don't know, has you know suddenly collapsed and based on you know the triage process, it's clear that, hey, this might be a case of like a sudden cardiac arrest.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're not trying to send a community first responder in their, you know, little vehicle or whatever. What you need is a full-on ambulance with a defibrillator and you know, as quickly as possible. In fact, we have um a couple of motorcycle medics that can get there faster with the equipment and start treatment before an ambulance gets there, and that can be useful in a place like Lagos. And so the system is able to basically um recommend that appropriate response and send out the details of the case to those that are in the field.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now they have their own application, very similar again, right? Uber, Uber driver application style. Um, they receive the details of the case, they can accept, they can navigate, and when they are done, they can report back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00And that adds, you know, basically creates almost like a full case picture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now, what happens if the patient needs to go to the hospital? Because, like you said, we have hospitals that we work with, but also this is Nigeria. A lot of times people either have a hospital that they are already affiliated with, maybe they were already getting treatment. So sometimes they will recommend and we can refer, you know, to um there and we will notify the hospitals in advance. Yeah. I would like to say that, you know, the hospitals are just they have this dashboard and I don't like to tell lies. In truth, a lot of times it is actually a manual communication because we have found that most of the time, and I think it's the nature of you know the hospital, the front desk, the ER, the way that they were, most of the time we want to be able to have our system automatically send SMS notifications to the appropriate number and then back it up with a phone call. So that's kind of what we have. Um, maybe the last thing I'll say is around when we are working in areas that aren't like, you know, a city center with great internet. Yeah. Is there great internet anyway? But anyway, um, you know, let's let's just say, right, we're working on the outskirts and the more rural areas, and you know, internet connection is a problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, we have a USSD system that basically works in parallel and also intersects with our core um technology. And what that allows is for us to still be able to coordinate the dispatch and inform um, usually these are community first responders to say, hey, there's a case happening near you. It's something that we're actually doing right now in Ogun State.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, there's a case happening near you and they get it. You know, they can dial the short code, star 334 hash, you know, and they see a menu, um, you know, view case, accept case. And all they're doing is, you know, put in one submit or two submit, and some, you know, that gets communicated. And the value there is that it allows us to still capture what is happening without necessarily the full, you know, sort of internet technology setup. So from a uh technology stack perspective, it's something that end to end allows us to get a full view on what has happened in the case, and then of course, you know, um be able to tell like how did we actually help this patient?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Our conversation with Fala Care was so rich that we had to split it into two episodes. So we come back to part two of a discussion around everything emergency medical services and response on the continent. See you in the next episode. Bye.
