New Telemedicine App Launches on Google, Apple Stores

Vanessa Obioha

A new telemedicine app, MyDokita has been launched on Google and Apple stores to provide Nigerians easy access to affordable medical practitioners overseas.
According to the founder Jide Akintola, it is important for Nigerians to embrace telemedicine as it would give them access to fast and reliable medical care.

“MyDokita app provides Nigerians affordable instant access to a second opinion on their diagnosis and medical prescriptions, thereby reducing the risk of misdiagnosis or wrong prescription. At the moment, there is no platform that allows collaboration and knowledge transfer between all the great Nigerian medical practitioners outside the country and those within the country. We have developed the MyDokita app to make this happen. The platform allows for mentoring, knowledge transfers and collaboration between Nigerian overseas medical practitioners and the local experts through online video, audio and chat consultation.”

Created in partnership with Pius Akanni Akintola Foundation, Akintola pointed out that the app would address the medical brain drain in Nigeria as well as strengthen the healthcare delivery in the country.

According to the World Health Orgainisation report in 2018, Nigeria’s average life expectancy is 55.2. Akintola is optimistic that the app would improve this statistic. He added that the app also features tips and advices on some medical issues.

As the world is still battling with the capricious coronavirus, the founder revealed that there are published articles on COVID-19, its spread, symptoms available on the app.
“This was made freely available to hundreds of users that registered on our platform during the app testing phase. We worked with a couple of charity organisations in the country to give away over two thousand free face masks to people in Ikeja, Egbeda, Yaba, Alimosho, Dopemu and Agege. We also took palliative measures during the lockdown by distributing raw food items to over seven hundred households in Alimosho Local Government. We repeated the same palliative measures during the start of Ramadan also.”

Akintola insisted that the world would have to live with COVID-19 until a vaccine was found, saying, “It is crucial for us to continue to follow the government guidelines on washing our hands, wearing face masks in public and practicing social distancing where possible.”