Motor-Cycle Relief

There is persistent poor condition of roads in Cameroon especially in semi-urban and rural settings, this has resulted in a drastic decline of organized public transport systems. Patients walk long distances to get to a health facility sometimes with fatal consequences. Health coverage and utilization of health services is therefore inadequate because of lack of means of transportation.

Our goal is to build a context specific health transport system in rural communities using a simple mobile application and mini-ambulances (uber for health model). Patients (especially pregnant woman and children) will be able to call-in requesting for rapid transportation to healthcare facilities and community health workers will be able to use these as a means of transport for vaccination or to administer drugs to homebound patients.

This can reduce pre-hospital transport time from 6 hours (on foot) to 30 minutes, thus reducing maternal and child mortality resulting from late presentation.

“Doctor, we have an emergency,” a nurse said on the phone. “A pregnant woman is in labor, but she’s barely conscious.” I quickly rushed to the hospital. There, I met a 22-year-old lady, covered in mud and semi-conscious. She had been brought from another health center two hours away, carried by her husband because there wasn’t an ambulance available. She had been in prolonged labor for nearly 20 hours. I quickly took her to the operating theatre for an emergency c-section. We saved her life, but sadly, it was too late for the baby. A stillbirth. This is just one of several cases i encountered as a physician in rural Cameroon. 

Cameroon is among the countries with the highest maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa with 782 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Everyday, 12-13 women die of pregnancy related causes.

In rural areas, this high mortality has been attributed to lack of access to healthcare due to long distances from health facilities and lack of transport means. Because of this, women tend not to seek pre-natal and peri-partum care with consequent high rate of unskilled home delivery contributing to even higher mortality.     

In the Motor-cycle relief project, Keafon Health aims to incorporate mobile technology, motorcycle and tricycle mini-ambulance system in bringing healthcare closer to communities.

Due to poor conditions of roads, transportation has been greatly replaced by motorized two-wheelers, a non-conventional means of public transport. With the Motorcycle Relief, we partner with health facilities that are difficult to access and provide them with mini-ambulance services.  These will serve as ambulances in areas that are difficult to reach. Through the k-Health platform (mobile app coming soon), patients will be able to call-in and have a triage over phone with a physician or healthcare worker who can dispatch a mini-ambulance for transportation to and from the hospital. This can reduce pre-hospital transport time from 6 hours (on foot) to 30 minutes, thus reducing maternal and child mortality resulting from late presentation. 

Community healthcare workers will also be able to use these mini-ambulances as a means of transport for vaccination campaigns or to administer drugs to homebound patients. These mini-ambulances can also be used to deliver a prescriptions made by an online physician on the k-health platform to a patient in a remote village at home. See our model here

Our target population is people living in rural and semi urban areas of Cameroon, with particular focus on pregnant women and children under the age of 5. We have started our projects in the South West Region of Cameroon and intend to scale to the rest of the country and other parts of Africa. Members of our team are physicians and healthcare workers who are in the front line in these communities and therefore understand their needs through continuous daily interaction with members of the communities. Through focused group interactions, we identified reasons for poor utilization of healthcare services and late presentation to the hospital. Physical distance from the health facility and lack of a transport means was frequently mentioned and that has helped to inform our solution. Our goal is to ensure that no woman loses her life or that of her baby as a result of lack of access to healthcare.

Identification of innovative and effective ways of using technology and other tech platforms to deliver healthcare services to the population can greatly improve the accessibility to healthcare in resource limited settings. Keafon health aims to incorporate mobile technology and motorcycle ambulance in bringing healthcare closer to communities through and innovative, context specific and integrated medical transport system. By ensuring that no woman loses her life or that of her baby as a result of lack of access to healthcare, we are providing an immediate solution that they need to survive and thrive.