Editor’s Note: New contributor Noor Ullah is a Portfolio Associate based out of Acumen Fund’s Pakistan office. Before joining Acumen Fund, Ullah served as a consultant for the World Bank, and as a business development consultant for a number of multinationals and private enterprises. He holds a B.A. from Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Last month, Sehat First (”sehat” means “health” in Urdu) opened its doors to patients for the first time in the village of Chasma Goth, a peri-urban area of Karachi. In the first two days, they treated over 22 patients and had sales over 3,000 Rupees! One of the patients at the clinic remarked, “You are all angels, sent to answer our prayers.”
Sehat First is a new social enterprise that provides quality health consultation and pharmacy services to lower income communities. Each clinic provides health consultancy services to patients using an e-sehat (health) tele-consulting application that remotely links up doctors and specialists with their patients via internet in the poorest of the poor suburbs of Karachi.
Despite challenging conditions, Shahida Saleem, President of d.o.t.z technologies, is up-beat that the Sehat First outlets will help create a more healthy community together with ensuring financial sustainability for the enterprise. Such enterprises provide critical services to impoverished communities in Pakistan, where there is a substantial need for cost-effective, high quality healthcare at the bottom of the pyramid.
With Acumen Fund’s support, Sehat First has the potential to transform the delivery of healthcare to a population who previously did not have access to such services. Acumen Fund’s assistance will help the enterprise increase outreach and expand into more communities in the months and years ahead.
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