I am fusing medicine and journalism to improve local healthcare

When Diana Wangari got an email early this year asking her to share her profile and that of her business, she didn’t immediately realise how well her fortunes were about to change.

The email was from Forbes Magazine Africa, and it was only weeks later that she discovered that she had been nominated for the Forbes Africa 30 under 30 list, a stellar collection of game-changing entrepreneurs and innovators from Africa who are under 30 years.

EVALUATION

This meant that she would soon be standing shoulder to shoulder with 29 other Africans in the 2019 cohort “who are building brands, creating jobs and representing and transforming the continent”.

The 27-year-old handed over her financial statements, compliance certificates and everything else that was required. Her passion project, Checkups Medical Centre, which she has been working on since 2016, then underwent an evaluation process and was acknowledged as indeed worthy of the recognition.

Wangari’s journey to the Forbes list began when she was a Second Year medical student at the University of Nairobi. Through her rigorous schedule, she grew restless and kept scratching her head trying to figure out what innovations she could come up with to make a positive impact on the local health sector.

At the clinics where she took her practical lessons, she observed that there was a lot to be done, especially in terms of lowering the cost of medicine, and improving the manner in which patients were handled.

She identified communication as a tool that could help ease the burden of the patients she came across, so she started by talking freely to them, and reproducing their experiences in a newspaper column she had.

Through her articles, and with a recommendation from her editor, she applied and got accepted to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, where she was a journalist-in-residence. The programme was aimed at deepening the understanding of participants in tropical medicine and global health issues, and she was among the first set of medical writers from Africa to be invited to the institution.

MOBILE APP

By the time she graduated from UoN in 2015, she had resolved to revolutionise medical services in Kenya. This desire to change things for the better had been planted and cultivated in her while she was in Belgium.

“I have never practiced medicine. I am more into administration. I could have gone to live in Europe, but I realised that when you bring back the skills you have acquired from abroad, you bring meaningful change and development,” says the general practitioner.

She continued using journalism as a tool to make an impact, and started writing research papers for organisations like the Kenya Medical Research Institute, including offering tangible solutions on improvement in service delivery. Within a short time, she was pitching her idea to potential investors, who advised her to explore e-health solutions. This is how IsickCure was born.

This is a mobile application that links pharmaceutical companies, distributors, insurers and healthcare providers directly to the patient following a preliminary diagnosis. With this, she hoped to help patients get the medicine they needed at a cheaper cost.

“It is not easy to sell medical drugs online. Patients prefer to see a doctor physically before they can trust the diagnosis. After encountering this challenge, we decided to put in place infrastructure that would help us establish trust among our customers,” she said.

Checkups Medical Centre was thus founded in 2018.

INVESTORS

These are outpatient management and care centres located in Nairobi, Naivasha, Bungoma and Kiambu where patients spend a maximum of 45 minutes between the time they come in, and the time they leave with their medication. They offer consultation services at Sh950 and laboratory tests. They also have a well-stocked pharmacy.

Wangari hopes to expand Checkups Medical Centres to include 25 clinics across East Africa within the next five years. She believes that apart from the government, private entities also have a role to play in creating healthcare management and financial solutions to achieve universal health care.

Being on the Forbes list has given Wangari’s business a huge boost in that it has reinforced her relationship with her current investors, and also enabled her to gain the respect of potential investors. Because of it, she recently gave a speech at the inaugural Forbes Women Africa Regional Forum in Kigali in August.

“The hardest thing for business people in Africa is accessing capital. I have come to realise that it is easier to get investors from outside the continent than from within, despite the fact that this is a business that is done by Africans and for Africans.

STRATEGY

During her free time, Diana enjoys reading books, riding bikes, bungee jumping and sky diving. She has also tried her hand in modelling. She believes that if you enjoy what you do, you won’t struggle to balance your professional life and your social one.

“We have so many good ideas, but to move things forward, one must derive a commercial strategy from those ideas. I remember during his keynote speech at Forbes 30 Under 30 ceremony, Tanzania billionaire Mohammed Dewji advised us to fearlessly approach the big business moguls for partnership opportunities or business advice because it takes great courage to even get a business running. That advice has stuck with me ever since.

“As Africans, we have the potential and ability to resolve our own problems. We don’t have to wait for foreign aid,” she says.

Diana’s work has also earned her a place in the list of finalists for the David Astor Journalism Award.