Forty per cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line; according to the National Bureau of Statistics, more than 82 million Nigerians live on less than $1.90 – N740 a day. This means that the average Nigerian spends N376.5 on food, water, electricity, clothing, house rent, health, etc.
Being citizens of a lower-middle-income economy, many Nigerians often see healthcare as a luxury. In 2019, healthcare made up six per cent of a Nigerian household’s spending on average. As of 2018, health insurance coverage in Nigeria was quite low, particularly in rural areas where only 1.4 per cent of people had health insurance.
This number was slightly higher in urban cities where people with health insurance mainly had employer-based coverage. But on an individual basis, the percentage of people with health insurance was between zero and one. About 97 per cent of the survey sample did not have health insurance at all. This is why WellaHealth was established; to make health care accessible and affordable for all.
In this interview with Ventures Africa, Richard Sowunmi, the business development manager for WellaHealth, talks about how the health startup is providing cost-effective technological solutions to improve the quality of healthcare for Nigerians.
Tell me a little about WellaHealth?
WellaHealth is a startup born out of the vision of a man, Dr Ikpeme Neto, to have a community where everyone can access healthcare regardless of their financial strength. The aim is simply to provide accessible, quality health care at a very affordable price for the whole of Africa and we are starting with Nigeria.
What services (health plan) do you offer and how much do they cost?
Right now, we have two main plans; the basic plan which is N450 monthly. It covers malaria test and treatment, BP test, diabetes, and telemedicine. It covers chats with doctors for any health concern, COVID-19 helpline, COVID-19 screening and testing, health tips and messages and health loans.
The other plan costs N700 a month. It covers everything on the basic plan plus typhoid test and treatment and a hospitalization cash payout of up to N100,000 once the beneficiary is admitted for just one night in a hospital. We also have an accidental death payout of N80,000 to the next of kin. Those are the two plans we have right now.
What you offer seem too good to be true. What is the reception like from Nigerians?
Indeed it sounds too good to be true and I must say that is what we need right now. The insurance culture in Nigeria is poor. When people hear about insurance, they automatically put up a defence about paying for something they do not need when they have so many pressing needs to attend to. Initially, a lot of people were very sceptical but with time the numbers are growing. Right now we have a customer base of about five thousand. It is moving slowly but steadily.
Are there particular pharmaceutical stores you work with? How many do you have nationwide?
Right now, we have 1,400 pharmacies and we continue to add more. WellaHealth started with a programme we term Engaged. It started as a set of Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM) for patients. We realized that many pharmacies and even some hospitals do not have the tools to adequately manage their patients. For instance, you find some patients get medication and don’t remember to take the dosage as prescribed by the doctor and that causes a problem that sends them back to the hospital. So when WellaHealth came into existence, it first served as a tool that helps pharmacies manage their patients in terms of a patient’s data, prescription, and required dosage.
The existing relationship with these pharmacies is what WellaHealth leveraged when it started to put out its insurance plan. Based on data collected from managing the patients of these pharmacies, we noticed that a high percentage of the medications that were disbursed are malaria drugs. We also discovered that many people go broke from treating malaria in the hospital. Malaria should not make you bankrupt regardless of your financial status. At a time a lot of people were dying from Malaria, so we had to first make its treatment easily accessible while providing quality medication.
We already had pharmacies we were working with to help manage their customers or patients at the time, so it was easy to ask them to join the program. The idea is for people to be able to access health care in as little as five to 10 minutes regardless of where they are in Nigeria once they have a WellaHealth cover. That is the whole idea of leveraging technology, it eliminates the usual waiting period in the hospital.
If a pharmacy close to you is not onboarded we’ll ask you to go to the pharmacy, we speak with the pharmacist and get them onboarded in no time. This has helped our growth. These pharmacies have the kit for running malaria and typhoid tests, we don’t just administer medication, we make sure you are tested first so we are sure what the problem is exactly. Once it’s confirmed that our patient has gotten treatment, the pharmacy gets paid through a dedicated wallet.
Can people get a refund for their plan if they don’t fall sick?
What we do is provide them with payment on their re-subscription. The minimum you can pay for is three months even if it is the basic plan. So we often send you a periodic message to remind you of your health care plan telling you to check your BP and heart rate at the pharmacy closest to you. We try to ensure our beneficiaries use their plan.
Seeing how affordable your plans are, how do you make a profit? Do you have sponsors and do you get grants?
We make a profit from putting many people together. We make a profit from those who don’t make health complaints. Those who don’t make complaints cover up for those who make complaints.
We have investors and we’ve also won competitions. Recently we won 1st place in the Swissre competition. We also contested for the choice award. Most times when international health tech startups are having competitions or programs, we participate. We win some and lose some.
Can you tell us about the WellaHealth Driage and how it helped curb the spread of coronavirus in Nigeria?
Before we learnt COVID-19 could be complicated, we created a tool that could suggest that you might be at risk and it is called Driage. Users get to answer basic questions like, “Have you travelled to Europe recently? Have you been in contact with those who just came back from high-risk countries?” and then get a result. Later, we had to develop it into a COVID helpline where you can have an interaction with an actual doctor. It is still valid now that is why you have the COVID-19 helpline in our malaria basic plan cover.
What are the challenges you face in the course of rendering your services?
There are so many challenges. The first is the scepticism of people towards insurance, then money payments. We would rather run the platform by having beneficiaries put in their card details and be charged automatically monthly, but people are sceptical about putting their information online. They would rather pay up front and that is problematic.
And as I said earlier, the insurance culture in Nigeria is poor. People often think of their pressing needs and are hesitant about getting health insurance since they are not yet sick. Those are some of the challenges we face but we try to convince them health is wealth.
How do you create awareness, and how do you convince people they need a health cover?
For awareness, we run ads on social media and also adopt P2P (peer to peer) marketing. We have a marketing team, a sales team, and ambassadors in tertiary institutions. Currently, we are working on partnerships with institutions like banks.
Wella Health is focused on high occurrence diseases in Africa, starting with malaria in Nigeria. Are there plans to shift from this anytime soon?
Yes, there are. Initially, it started with just malaria and now we have included cough, catarrh, typhoid treatment, and hospitalization cover. Even now, we are working on including chronic illnesses. WellaHealth’s mission is to provide quality health care that is very affordable and easily accessible. We plan on going into full health cover as time progresses.
What do you advise healthcare startups and the government to do to revive Nigeria’s healthcare?
It is very difficult to say what we can expect of the Nigerian government. The dispensation of health technology in Nigeria is just one per cent. Imagine we can do fifty per cent. The potential in Nigeria is massive, so I enjoin other healthcare startups to come in and collaborate because there is so much to be done. I feel there is a great opportunity for healthcare startups but they will have to think about the people first. Because if you come into healthcare thinking of profit, you might soon pack up. Healthcare startups must be passionate about improving. The sky is big enough for every one of us to grow and provide good health care for our nation.
Interview by Adekunle Agbetiloye
