Safe and secure healthcare delivery is still an issue in this aspect of the world and the challenge took another turn specifically during the COVID 19 lockdowns.
Imagine a situation where there is no enough medical personnel to serve a specific number of people and all of a sudden, a lockdown occurred increasing the odds of getting enough healthcare services.
The founder and CEO of an Abuja-based health tech startup, SURGEN, Sudhir Singh Rathore are changing the narrative. The healthtech startup is a private online platform that offers secure and safe interaction between consumers and healthcare providers.
SURJEN provides users access to teleconsultation with doctors based on demand. It includes home pickups of medical samples for lab testing, medical tourism services, surgery packages costs, healthcare marketplace, and emergency ambulance services as close as their mobile phones.
Sudhir has spent five years in Nigeria and realized the Nigerian healthcare delivery has a huge gap when kids got sick of malaria and high fever, he always drove them to the hospital in the middle of the night instead of the hospital sending a nurse or doctors to his house and administer treatment as required.
Through adequate research, Sudhir discovered none of the hospitals wanted to send medical personnel to a patient’s house because there are patients who have not been attended to in the hospitals, and those who were willing charged high fees.
Through thorough research, Sudhir found out that none of the hospitals were willing to send the medical staff to a patient’s house due to the number of unattended ones at the hospitals and the ones which were willing was charging high fees.
“We conceptualized the idea early 2020 and kick-started on 15th July 2020 by launching our website surjen.com at the peak of COVID-19 Pandemic in Abuja”
The healthtech startup is changing the delivery of healthcare in Nigeria as it provides patients the opportunity to be in charge of their ability to make informed decisions.
Patients can book lab tests right from their homes with facilities to pick up at home by the startup’s phlebotomist. Patients can also have free second medical opinions, book ambulances, and compare surgery costs from different hospitals.
Mission and vision
The startup’s online platform aims at leveraging technology to bridge the gap between providers and consumers by developing a competitive and transparent healthcare service delivery platform for Africans while making sure an ecosystem provides an accessible, authentic, and affordable healthcare delivery service for Africans.
“We have developed a website for our users to book doctor’s and phlebotomist’s home visit appointments with transparent and competitive pricing and a secured online payment gateway.”
How SURJEN works
SURGEN provides a variety of healthcare services at home, be it medicine administration, blood testing, emergency ambulance, or a second opinion from healthcare specialists, and doctors visit.
Users can also select and book the health service with their phone contact on the website, make payment and get a schedule for offline service delivery.
“We have a 24/7 call center which handles customer’s health-related phone calls and online queries.”
Market acceptance
SURJEN website stated that they have attended to over 2250 patients, worked with more than 500 healthcare partners, and over 1200 healthcare services.
However, after its launch mid-last year during the covid pandemic, the company hasn’t encountered many challenges. Sudhir stated that the majority of the new customers of the platform are recommended by the customers who used their service before.
