With Medishala Healthcare app, villagers get virtual consultation with doctors based in Patna and can also visit them in person if the need arises. The company has tied up with local chemists to arrange the appointments.
The viral outbreak that has overrun even the best healthcare systems in the world has, so far, been kinder to India’s rural areas but the fact remains that healthcare in these parts is woefully inadequate. Quacks fill in for doctors and their concoctions are the best medicines people can hope for.
Patna-based health-tech startup Medishala Healthcare Pvt Ltd wants to change that, replacing the quacks with doctors, with some help from technology.
Launched in February 2019 by Swamy and friends Suman Sourav, Prince Kumar and Mohammad Amanullah, all alumni of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Medishala connects patients in Bihar’s remote areas to doctors based in the state capital Patna.
The four started working on the idea while in college. It didn’t take them long to launch Medishala, as they had the resources and the technical know-how.
Except Amanullah, who is from the information technology stream, the other three trained as civil engineers.
Launching the company was the easy part, convincing the doctors wasn’t. They were not keen on switching to technology. Their experience with the startups had not been great and for them, teleconsulting was an extra piece of work.
