Ruhango residents tipped on mobile-based health consultation

Babyl Rwanda, an innovative digital healthcare provider, on Friday, conducted a campaign in Ruhango District to raise awareness on a new system of consulting with doctors about health problems through a mobile phone The new way of consultation will be free of charge and beneficiaries can use any kind of mobile phone to report their health problems to doctors by pressing start (*)811 then#. Once the process of registering yourself is done having provided all personal information, including name, ID number among others, beneficiaries can report to doctors any related health problem. The campaign in Ruhango featured signing users or beneficiaries up for free trial period, and explanations to the beneficiaries on new helpful way of consulting doctors without visiting them to their offices. Babyl Rwanda is an innovative digital healthcare which provides access to nurses and doctors through a mobile phone freely. Tracey McNeill, the CEO of Babyl, said the new system will be helpful to all Rwandans by reducing the number of people who would fall sick and remain in bed due to the lack of access to nurses and doctors. “The interest shown for an easier solution to access healthcare for non emergency cases is astonishing. We have already registered more than 50,000 people and the daily average for consultation equals 1,000 people,” McNeill said. “We see applications like Babyl that bring the most advanced technology together with the doctors, signing a new age in healthcare, giving millions of people access to expert qualified doctors more quickly and easily than ever before. This is why we have developed a feature phone version with our Rwandan and UK developers to ensure that anyone can access the service,” she added. Annonciata Kambayire, Ruhango vice mayor in charge of social affairs, said that the new system will contribute more to the provision of health services in the district as well as other parts of the country. “We appreciate the service of Babyl to help citizens get health services using technology. This will help residents, it is not necessary for the beneficiaries to queue at hospitals for consultation. The system will not focus on consultation only but also people will be educated on health issues,” Kambayire said. She said that the service will help young women to ask questions about the changes of their health. Kambayire advised people to embrace the technology, adding that beneficiaries should profit and ask questions once they feel unwell Babyl enables users to have consultations with doctors over their phone and provide the opportunity for them to ask health-related questions and get clinically validated responses through cutting-edge monitoring and diagnostics processes. Users are also able to get their prescription code sent to their mobile phone so they may purchase medication from the nearest pharmacy partnering with Babyl. Beneficiaries speak Yves Isingizwe, a resident of Ruhango, appreciated the system, saying it will help beneficiaries get fast support in case of problems. “We are happy for this service. The service will reduce the time we would spend visiting health centres in case of any health problem. We would face difficulties at hospital due to the number of patients. Doctors would fail to attend to all of us,” Isingizwe said. Anne Marie Mugorenejo, 61, another resident, said the system is so helpful because the services will be fast and free of charge. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Ruhango residents tipped on mobile-based health consultation