With 500+ consumers in the beginning and operating in 4 towns, this startup is now providing home healthcare in Gangtok, Mangan, and other places.
The medical facilities in Sikkim may not have improved, but for the long, its imperfect shelter for those with non-urgent medical needs is perhaps the last place you want to be amid a pandemic in Sikkim.
Covid-19 has aggravated an already broken Sikkim’s healthcare system in which at least 30% of emergency department visits were deemed unneeded before the virus’s arrival. Patients with less urgent conditions often wait hours for care, and they’re usually left with a hefty bill. Now, a new healthcare model is seeking to bridge the gap between clinical care and telemedicine, offering hands-on medical aid inside people’s homes.
In a time of Covid, a company known simply as Ready is logging more than 500+ visits and delivered medicine to 400+ a month to patients in Gangtok, Majhitar, Rangpo, Mangan, and Singtam. When called, Ready quickly dispatches a Responder, who’s in connection with 20+ doctors and some paramedic, to a patient’s home. They also do blood sample collection from home and other medical support.
Healbridge a Sikkim-based startup started by two young entrepreneurs named Karan Singh and Sumesh Chettri in September 2020 as a home medicine delivery to the patient in Gangtok. Healbridge is supported by AICTBI- SMU.
“Covid 2.0 accelerated a trend that had already begun, which is a shift from institutional brick-and-mortar urgent care to the home setting,” according to Heal Bridge founder, Karan Singh.
“It’s necessary for people in Gangtok to know we can provide their medical services to the home they just need to call and send us paper but it’s impressive to see the organization rise to the challenge of providing care in the most difficult of times, in places and to populations that other companies have not focused on.” Said One Doctor from Gangtok who also works with healbridge.
In this pandemic, the business has become a model Startup for Healthcare, drawn new ideas and talent, and fueled the company’s growth. With Covid-19, HealBridge use has reached record highs in just one state. As soon, the situation goes normal they are looking forward to entering into rural healthcare in partnership with some Healthcare.
Last month, as a flood of virus cases, pushed Sikkim to a breaking point, the Honourable Chief Minister of Sikkim pleaded during a news briefing about lockdown which was extended for two weeks later caused many people can’t go outside to buy medicine and Healbridge was helping to deliver medicine at affordable home delivery cost.
In 2021, Ready intends to dispatch an experimental run program that will permit in excess of 100 doctors to dispatch responders into their patients’ homes. “We’re working in an innovation stage that can be grown in every city and scale high to create reforming healthcare, Founder Karan said.
“You can expect that at last individuals will approach Ready Responders in each town in NorthEast in the future.”
