Our Story
Genesis and vision for affordable, accessible and quality healthcare
iScript.Health was founded on a simple but powerful idea – accessible healthcare for all. This idea was born out of a personal tragedy when our founder, Dr. Chomba, lost his younger sister to HIV/AIDS while still in medical school over two decades ago.
This experience led Dr. Chomba to realize the critical need for accessible healthcare services for all individuals, regardless of their socioeconomic background. Since then, iScript.Health has been committed to providing high-quality medical care and treatment options to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.
Our mission is to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, and convenient for everyone, and we strive to uphold this commitment every day.
Our Journey Through Time
How we got to where we are
Pain, Loss, and Devastation
1999 was my last year of university and treatment for HIV/AIDS was well over 2,000 USD per month, well out of reach for my family. After managing a few doses of AntiRetro Virals (ARVs) medication, she succumbed to Tuberculosis (TB) on Christmas Eve of 1999, at a tender age of 23. – It was most devastating loss I had ever suffered, especially with my inability to intervene at any level.
Read More 1976 - 1999
The Awakening, Managed Healthcare
It was only after internship that I met up with my mentor and still one of my great friends, Dr. Amit Thakker. Thakker introduced me to the concept of keeping patients healthy, long enough for them not to come back for medical services. Concisely, his mantra was to focus on health & wellness and keeping patients away from getting sick. This sounds easy and natural from a doctor-patient relationship, but it is not.
Read More 2000-2003The Second Awakening
Fast forward to 2019, I had a wake-up call. During a visit to my brother-in-law in Australia, I received a call from home to find out that my closest aunt had passed on at tender age of 55.
Read More 2003 - 2018Sustainable HealthCARE Model
My sister and aunt’s death are two examples of healthcare systems gone awry!... and I have not even started on a case of extortion when hospital realized that my dad was on medical insurance and wanted to keep him longer!
Read More 2019 - 2022Taking Action and Responsibility
That is the genesis and central idea behind iScript Health. A vehicle to transform and disrupt healthcare through managed healthcare and technologies that enable affordable, accessible and quality healthcare in Africa.
Read More 2022 -3 Million AIDS Deaths in 2000
Broken Healthcare Model
Right after graduating from medical school, through internship, the experience of inequities and affordability for medical services became more glaring and disheartening. Healthcare for most in Africa is offered as a fee-for-service model. You pay for receiving a service and getting medicament for your illness.
The doctors therefore charge the highest possible fee that the patient can afford, while the pharmacist will add the best possible margin to keep their businesses healthy. In the most simplistic way, the more you get sick, the more the industry thrives.
This is simply the way everyone in the healthcare business is trained, indoctrinated and ultimately practices; no wonder the largest population cannot afford healthcare and cases of death due to simple, affordable solutions still persist. Patients keep away from visiting their doctor due to cost constraints and only seek health consultation as a last resort when the disease is too advanced.
Practitioners simply point fingers at patients, without realizing their greater contribution to the “health avoidance behaviour” driven by high costs, poor education and accessibility.
Dr. Amit Thakker
Managed Healthcare
Dr. Amit Thakker (then at Avenue Healthcare) introduced me to the concept of keeping patients healthy, long enough for them not to come back for medical services. Concisely, his mantra was to focus on health & wellness and keeping patients away from getting sick. This sounds easy and natural from a doctor-patient relationship, but it is not.
UNLEARNING AND RE-LEARNING
In my first job as Clinical Manager, my thinking was turned inside-out and had to unlearn & re-learn that the best way to make profits in healthcare was a healthy patient. It was an out of the box mindset and still an inverted model not appreciated by non-business healthcare providers.
This required both a medical and business mindset to pull off, the latter of which I was completely lacking. For the next two decades, I spent time in the corporate and entrepreneurial world honing my skills creating, starting and managing businesses; skills that are completely underestimated, but which are absolutely invaluable for the future of healthcare in any country.
The Second Wakeup Call
My aunt was someone who had been in my life from a tender age while growing up and a pillar of strength in the family. Suffice to mention, she had also been remarkably close to my late sister; and suffered the same fate and let down by our inadequate healthcare system
Cause of death? Acute asthmatic attack! How devastating. To make matters worse, I could not attend her funeral having been so far away with family.
I went home a month later to pay my tributes and her story was both devastating to listen to and an admonition to my resolution.
Devastation &
Admonition
Devastating in that she had to wait a whole night through an acute asthmatic attack to access medical help, mainly due to poor understanding from caretaker and partly from access to costly private basic healthcare facilities.
Devastating
Despite being a chronic asthmatic, her partner did not have the basic understanding and information on how to take care of such acute attacks. Additionally, poor mismanagement from infrequent visits and lack of the right medication brought about by cost of healthcare access had led to this inevitable end to such a dear life.
Admonition
It was also an admonition from my procrastination of finding workable solutions to affordable, accessible, and quality healthcare for the community that I grew up in and Africa in general. It was a red flag to get myself out of the self-imposed stupor, put all my leadership, business and medical skills together for a great cause.
My sister and aunt’s death are two examples of healthcare systems gone awry!… and I have not even started on a case of extortion when hospital realized that my dad was on medical insurance and wanted to keep him longer!
It is a healthcare & business model that is inefficient, unsustainable, and centralized on a sick patient, rather than a healthy citizen. Doctors and healthcare providers should be rewarded when a patient is healthy, not when they fall sick. In the capitalist world of rewards and profits, medical businesses and professionals should be incentivized when patients keep away from surgeries, hospitals or other healthcare facilities – not when they visit them frequently.
Unfortunately, very few practitioners and health businesses view it this way… and I don’t blame them; To a man who has a hammer and trained for 30 years on how to use it, every problem will look like a nail.
Taking Action & Ownership
That is the genesis and central idea behind iScript Health. A vehicle to transform and disrupt healthcare through managed healthcare and technologies that enable affordable, accessible and quality healthcare in Africa.