The COVID-19 pandemic’s second wave in India has left the medical system in shambles. Hospitals are overcrowded and oxygen concentrators are still hard to find. During such times, receiving treatment at home for non-emergency cases could be a better solution than visiting hospitals to meet doctors.
With this vision, US-based doctor Abhijeet Nakave developed MDTok to bring doctors from across the globe on a single platform so they could provide free consultations to patients in India, including those suffering from mild Covid symptoms. The platform does not provide emergency treatment but is designed for online consultations only.
Abhijeet started working on the idea in June last year, but the platform was ready to launch only on May 1 this year.
MDTok has over 400 doctors on its database, majorly from the Indian diaspora across the globe including the US, UK and Germany. “I am from Mumbai, and my family members are also based there. It is very difficult to just sit and wait as your loved ones are in danger. So even though the platform was not fully ready, we wanted to do our bit to help our country, and so decided to launch it,” Abhijeet tells YourStory over a video call from Virginia, USA.
Apart from COVID-19 consultations, many other consultations are chargeable
Nearly 140,000 people have visited the platform, and at least two million clicks were recorded on the website until May 11th. Abhijeet claims that the entire growth has happened organically through word of mouth. Either by patients who have used the platform, or doctors giving consultations on the platform.
As the founder, Abhijeet was particular that the website is maintained as such, and not as a platform as he believed its target audience may or may not have access to good internet to download an app. This is still the case in many rural areas of India.
“The idea was to keep the website as simple and as clean as possible so that people from any part of the world can navigate it easily,” says Glenn Morten, a New Zealand-based technology expert, who developed MDTok’s user interface.
The green, blue and white themed interface is quite simple, with a link for COVID-19 related consultation on the top-most banner. When a patient clicks on the link, it takes them to doctors providing free consultations. The banner on this page specifies that the platform is not for emergency consultation. Patients can also upload their reports beforehand.
As of now, the platform is self-funded by Abhijeet, Glenn, and a few other doctors on the platform.
“Apart from getting Covid-related consultations, our platform is also being used for other health-related problems. Due to the Covid strain on hospitals, many patients are unable to get treated for other issues as well,” says Abhijeet. Other health-related consultations offered on the platform include diabetes and heart-related conditions.
India’s Covid-19 cases as well as the death toll have been on a constant rise. On May 17, the total death toll stood at 274,390 with active cases at 3,516,997.
As of now, MDTok is active in India, the US, Canada, the UK, Singapore and UAE. There is a lot of demand coming from South America and a few European countries. “The goal for now is to keep up with the demand and help as many people as possible,” concludes Abhijeet.
