Medicycles

Updated Oct 02, 2019

Medicycles

Kevin Gibbons

Monthly, 1-day comprehensive health clinics in remote Ugandan villages with high prevalence rates of HIV

We use microfinanced motorcycle taxis to set up monthly, 1-day comprehensive health clinics in remote villages in Uganda, especially ones with high prevalence rates of HIV. We start with a low-interest loan, and that driver transports health workers to 3 nearby villages once per month. Patients spend less on transportation and receive better care because they have more time with health workers....

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Prevention

Transport

Treatment

Stage 4: Transition to Scale

Registered in Uganda

Focus Areas:

Economic Growth and Trade, Entrepreneurship, Social & Micro Finance and 6 MoreSEE ALL

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Problem

The major challenge in Uganda is not a lack of healthcare -- it’s a lack of reach. It’s a matter of distance and distribution. Round-trip transportation to a local health facility can cost from $2 to $10, but many underserved people -- especially women and children – live on less than $2 per day. For those who are geographically isolated, poverty and distance to medical facilities are more than barriers to accessing healthcare -- they contribute to death and sickness.

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Solution

Motorcycle taxis are helping save lives by expanding patient access to healthcare as part of the HAC Medicycles Program. HAC micro-finances motorcycles and boat taxis to local residents looking for economic opportunity. Then, HAC dispatches motorcycle taxis and boats to take healthcare workers to patients in remote villages on a monthly basis. HAC's monthly healthcare clinics connect healthcare directly to the patients so that they no longer have to travel significant distances to find care.

Target Beneficiaries

We provide healthcare access to Ugandans living in remote and rural areas. Most of our patients are living in poverty. Many of our patients are HIV positive. We also provide a significant amount of pre- and post- natal care.

Competitive Advantage

1) Continuity of care: Health workers are regularly transported to the same program partner villages on a predictable monthly basis, so residents can rely on these clinics and health workers with whom they have established provider relationships and familiarity. 2) Reliable transportation: HAC microfinances a motorcycle taxi to a qualified driver in the area, and that driver commits to transporting health workers and supplies to 3 villages per month as a condition of the loan. This arrangement lowers costs, assures reliability, and also provides a source of income to the driver. 3) Community cost-sharing & sustainability: Patients who attend the HAC outreach clinics pay $0.55 (less for children), which covers overhead costs. By involving a local leader in the administration, scheduling, and marketing of the clinic, each community has a stake in ownership; this builds sustainability of the model and a direct working relationship between each community and its healthcare partners.

Planned Goals and Milestones

HAC seeks funding to help increase the number of villages and people its healthcare access programs can reach with much-needed healthcare services. HAC’s long-term goal is to engage this model healthcare access program to establish additional life-saving programs throughout Uganda, and to make available this model to other organizations that can replicate it wherever it will serve the healthcare needs of remote and underserved populations around the globe.

The Team Behind the Innovation

Kevin Gibbons (Executive Director & Co-Founder), Carolyne Ariokot (Programme Director & Co-Founder), Jan Baskin (Board Chair), Benson Chirwa (Board Member), Denise Birungi Evans (Board Member), Allie Kibwika Muyinda (Board Member), Ronald Tibiita (Board Member), & Bruce Willis (Board Member)