Medicine Access in Rwanda Only a Click Away – Haraka Meds.
In all health sectors, technology is being embraced. Be it in pharmacies or hospitals. Technological equipment are being used to treat patients and improve health services.
Due to the need to improve the healthcare services by using the help of technology, young Rwandan entrepreneurs came together and created an online platform called Harakameds ltd.
Harakameds has partnerships with different pharmacies in Kigali that they work with to help customers get variety of their products to their disposal and this helps them be able to accept prescriptions as well.
Harakameds mission is to Improve accessibility to healthcare products by saving customers’ time and cost and most importantly alleviate the customer’s struggle of finding the health products.
On the Haraka meds Website, a patient who needs medicine or a person who needs cosmetics like skin oil and a mother who needs milk and diapers for her baby can make an order without going out to look for where she can buy them.
More to that one can upload his/her prescription and within forty-five minutes to one hour, they can have their medicine on their doorstep.
At HarakaMeds, easy and smart access to medical healthcare services is our priority.
Harakameds’ vision includes creating a platform where people can have easy access to medicine and other health products anytime and anywhere in Rwanda and to be the country’s most favorable online medical retailer and the most trusted online healthcare service provider.
Who Is The Targeted Audience Though?
Harakameds wants to serve a patient who can’t easily find their prescribed medications, a patient who needs medication in a fastest time possible, patients who wants to save time and patients with chronic diseases.
Just like other companies, Harakameds also faced some challenges when starting. It met with issues of not having enough funding to cover the logistic costs and hiring competent staff.
Another challenge they faced was public awareness and trust. It is hard at times for the public to believe online products and services especially in African countries where internet penetration and e-commerce is only starting to prove its worth.
In order to address the lack of seed funding, the Haraka meds team had to work hard in their respective full time jobs and participate in a number of startup competitions such as Hanga pitch fest organized by the ministry of ICT and innovation in which they made it in the top 25.
Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the government has put on measures to help reduce the spread of the virus by introducing and encourage home based care.
Harakameds was launched just as the right solution to reduce the spread of Covid-19, because it does not require presence of a person to order.
A person just places an order and a person who is tested, vaccinated and having all the necessary equipment to avoid spread the virus like hand sanitizer is dispatched to bring the products to a person’s door step without the person moving around looking for what he/she wants and at risk of catching or spreading the virus, then the person can pay via mobile money.
Innovative Companies like Harakameds are needed in Rwanda to help facilitate improvement of healthcare services.
More to that such ideas helps bring out other new ideas and elevate competition among healthcare companies which lead to production of better quality services. This will also encourage the government to see how important such services are in the country hence find ways of supporting them out.
