Medbit healthcare for Africa

There is a dire scarcity of healthcare professionals in Africa, especially in countries like Kenya. If the stats are to be checked, the ratio of healthcare professionals to people is 13.8 per 10,000 people. This is where Medbit has stepped up to ease the situation.

Medbit is a young startup and aims for better medical access in Africa. Medbit connects patients with health care specialists through a mobile app. Although Medbit won’t be providing doctors, nurses, and other specialists, it will guide the people to find the nearest doc or healthcare unit. The services are extended to hospitals and healthcare institutions.

Some of the features that come with the app are doctor discovery, scheduling, communication, and payments. Although the startup is a young and recent one, it already has 150 doctors signed up and ready to work with Medbit. And even if there are just two months remaining for this year to complete, Medbit aims to have at least 1,500 doctors on board by the end of it.

“When you look at the health care system in Kenya and Africa, it’s broken. It’s really hard for everyone in the country to access these doctors,” says Denis Mugambi, co-founder of Medbit. “You could say that Medbit is a ZocDoc for Africa only that we are more institution based,” Mugambi added. Medbit does not charge a subscription instead, for every transaction facilitated via Medbit; hospitals pay a 10 percent commission to Medbit.