Crisis to care: Gerocare reinvents elderly healthcare in Nigeria

…Turns exigency bills into preventive subscriptions

By Chioma Obinna

Nigeria’s healthcare strategy is staring astatine a soundless crisis. More than 20 cardinal citizens are supra the property of 60, yet less than 200 certified geriatricians service this population. That leaves astir 1 doc for each 100,000 seniors. With the aged colonisation acceptable to treble by 2050, the question is nary longer if the strategy volition buckle, but however soon.

Worse still, Nigeria has 1 of the world’s worst beingness expectancy ratios, it has nary functional nationalist argumentation connected the attraction and payment of older persons.

However, for families abroad, the situation is personal. A changeable successful Lagos tin trigger a N2 cardinal exigency measure settled from London. A diabetes complication successful Abuja whitethorn spark frantic ligament transfers from Toronto. Reactive healthcare is costly healthcare, draining savings and straining families.

It is into this spread that Gerocare Solutions, a Lagos-based health-tech startup, has stepped with a bold proposition: crook crisis-driven spending into preventive subscriptions that prevention lives, stabilise costs, and physique a caller wellness infrastructure for seniors.

A Geriatrician astatine the University Teaching Hospital Benin, Prof. Obehi   Akoria, said geriatric medicine is simply a speciality that focuses connected the wellness attraction of aged people. It aims to beforehand wellness by preventing and treating diseases and disabilities successful older adults.

Akoria said communal problems presented by the aged colonisation see hypertension and its complications, bosom failures, stroke, and diabetes its complications. 

Preventive alternative

Emergency admissions successful backstage hospitals outgo betwixt N300,000 and N1,000,000. Multiply that by millions of seniors surviving with preventable conditions, and the figures spiral into billions annually.

Gerocare’s subscription exemplary is designed to chopped that burden. For N25,000 monthly, aged parents person location visits, vitals checks, and medicine management. A N35,000 “Doctor connected Demand” program adds round-the-clock access, portion yearly HMO-style packages up to N770,000 screen chronic illness absorption and infirmary admissions.

Speaking to Vanguatd, co-founder of Gerocare, Dr. Ebi Ofrey explained: “Even astatine the premium tier, it is inactive cheaper than 2 exigency infirmary stays. Families wage less, parents enactment healthier, and spending becomes predictable.”

Building Invisible Infrastructure

Ofrey said:,’What Gerocare is gathering is much than a service, it is infrastructure. Since launch, the institution has signed up implicit 30,000 subscribers, deployed 750 doctors crossed 54 cities, and integrated 1,000 spouse labs and pharmacies.

In a state wherever healthcare transportation is often fragmented, this web itself becomes a competitory moat. 

“We similar to picture Gerocare arsenic the sibling you permission astatine home, who does for your parents what you would person done if you were physically present,” Ofrey explained.

The exemplary is simple: children overseas oregon successful different cities wage for subscriptions, portion parents person structured, home-based care. Crucially, the aged bash not person to grapple with technology.

“Mama doesn’t interaction the tech. Her kid subscribes and manages everything. All she has to bash is reply the doctor’s call.”

Diaspora dollars redirected

The Nigerian diaspora remits much than $20 cardinal annually, with healthcare 1 of the astir communal expenses. Traditionally, these funds get aft emergencies erstwhile it is often excessively late.

Gerocare aims to redirect that wealth earlier crises strike. By offering predictable preventive care, it transforms emergency-driven transfers into recurring subscriptions.

The imaginable is vast. At conscionable 2 percent penetration of Nigeria’s elder population, Gerocare could service 400,000 subscribers and make N120 cardinal ($150 million) annually. Capturing 5 percent of diaspora healthcare remittances could make a billion-dollar gross stream.

Founder’s pain

The company’s ngo is profoundly personal. Despite being a doc for much than 20 years, Ofrey recalls losing his begetter to aggregate strokes and watching his parent conflict with unmanaged hypertension and diabetes.

“Research shows that by the property of 45, astir 90 to 94 percent of Nigerians volition person mislaid 1 oregon some parents, chiefly owed to preventable conditions near untreated...