Articles by Nadaa Taiyab

As an Acumen Fund Fellow, I have spent the past seven months working for Medicine Shoppe India, one of Acumen Fund’s investees, as the project head for the Sehat Clinic pilot. Medicine Shoppe is a well-established pharmacy brand in India, with over 130 stores already in operation. With Acumen Fund’s recent equity investment, Medicine Shoppe has launched the Sehat Clinics, an entirely new format aimed at the urban poor. 

The Sehat concept is simple – a health clinic and Medicine Shoppe pharmacy under one roof. The Sehat Clinic is staffed by a doctor hired by the Medicine Shoppe. Patients pay a nominal sum, usually Rs20, for the doctor’s consultation. If the patient purchases his or her prescription from Medicine Shoppe, the Rs20 is rebated back to them. As a result, the doctor’s consultation becomes free of charge and patients pay only for the medicine. The medicines prescribed by the Sehat doctor are, whenever possible, the generic version of the branded drugs, thus further lowering the cost of medical care to the consumer. Other medical services are also performed in the Clinic at above-cost, but below-market prices.

When I arrived in December, we opened the first Sehat Clinic. Last weekend we opened the seventh, with an eight shortly underway. The model has undergone a tremendous evolution in the past six months. We shifted our site selection strategy from relatively affluent areas with a slum nearby to locating the clinics right inside slums. We redesigned the process through which we recruit doctors and created an employment package that allows us to hire experienced doctors at a salary we can afford. We also implemented an entirely new concept for Medicine Shoppe called community marketing outreach. Through this program, we hire local women in each area to make daily home visits, refer sick patients to the clinic, spread health education and awareness, and promote our free health camps and health clinics. In the past four months we have held over 35 health-plus-vision-testing camps, serving over 4,000 people. We have also made some changes to the look and feel of the clinics and shops and put all our marketing materials in local language, to make our services more appealing to low-income markets.ÂÂ