Too busy to see the doctor? There’s an app for that in India that may be the answer to its chronic health care problems
The MFine app lets users consult doctors from leading hospitals online by phone, text, or video, and ease the burden on India’s health care system. It also aims to make a doctor’s consultation more comprehensive and effective
Rahul Kaushik is a busy 33-year-old engineer, who works long hours for a mobile phone company in the Indian capital, New Delhi, where the city’s permanent traffic congestion and pollution means even a 12-kilometre drive to a doctor’s clinic is difficult.
To get around the problem he used an app called MFine. It meant when his young daughter’s fever wouldn’t subside recently and his father’s lack of appetite after an asthma attack left him alarmingly underweight, Kaushik did not have to put them in the car and take them to his local family doctor.
Using the app, he spoke instantly to a paediatrician about his daughter and then an asthma specialist about his father.
“My daughter’s fever wasn’t serious but I just wanted to be sure there wasn’t anything else I should be doing. As for my father, the doctor prescribed something that helped,” said Kaushik.
Could this instant medical care signal a brave new world for medicine in India? Kaushik believes that it does. “I have a really pressured job, so sitting at my desk getting a medical opinion was the best thing for me,” he said.
