A group of young professionals in Botswana have come up with an innovative way to make it easier for patients to reach doctors online.

This is after coronavirus made one-on-one consultations difficult.

Doctors E-Consult is an online doctor-patient consultation room on a mobile or electronic device.

Loatile Nkala explained to the BBC’s Focus on Africa the motivation behind the app and how it works.

“My grandfather who is diabetic couldn’t come to Gaborone [the capital] to access a doctor so we ended up trying to courier the medicine and that was very difficult to do,” she said.

Ms Nkala says medical services in the country were already difficult to access before Covid as patients had to queue for long hours.

“We have an array of doctors … we also have pharmaceutical services right on our mobile application,” she explained.

She said they were working on partnerships with the health ministry to have access points at the rural clinics that are understaffed.

The patients would therefore be assisted by clinical officers in this clinic to access doctors based in Gaborone.