NaYa: Bridging the Healthcare Gap for Africa’s Low-Income Families

NaYa is a digital platform revolutionizing healthcare access for low-income patients in Africa. By connecting patients with healthcare providers, offering health savings accounts with added benefits, and enabling family contributions to healthcare payments, it bridges critical gaps in the healthcare system.

An estimated half a billion people worldwide are at risk of poverty due to illness (World Bank, 2021). In Africa, where the burden of infectious diseases is highest and non-communicable diseases are on the rise, the lack of universal health coverage and limited income make healthcare access unaffordable—especially for low-income, informal workers. Climate change exacerbates these challenges, with climate-sensitive diseases like malaria increasing and frequent disruptions to informal workers’ livelihoods. Women are disproportionately affected, representing 80% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s low-income informal workforce.

This innovative solution directly tackles the health insecurity faced by informal workers, enabling them to manage health crises and maintain productivity through a community-driven, digital healthcare benefits platform integrated with healthcare providers.

Key features of the platform include:

• Socially Accepted Health Financing: Users can receive contributions from family and friends, leveraging trusted, community-based financing methods.
• Inclusivity: The platform, accessible on basic mobile phones, uses a text-based interface designed for users with limited digital literacy. Its portability ensures that informal workers can save for healthcare and receive contributions anytime, anywhere.
• Interoperable Wallet System: Through a chatbot service, donors and organizations can provide trackable health support to beneficiaries, while healthcare providers can secure payments seamlessly, overcoming geographic and logistical barriers.
• Enhanced Accountability: Real-time documentation of healthcare delivery and a health-only spending restriction on saved funds ensure that resources are directed exclusively to healthcare services and products.

By addressing the multifaceted healthcare needs of low-income informal workers in Africa, this platform builds resilience against health crises. It empowers individuals and their communities, fostering long-term well-being and economic stability.

NaYa’s health chatbot is a mobile-accessible platform that connects healthcare providers with local patients and supporting family members. Through the platform, patients can save funds for healthcare, reserve medications, receive financial contributions from family members, and access discounts on medicines. Supporting family members or donors gain visibility into care delivery, while providers receive payments and can share relevant health information with patients. The ultimate goal is to make healthcare more accessible and affordable across Africa.

NaYa’s in-network benefits and payments are accepted by a growing network of affiliated providers, including community pharmacies, clinics, and medical laboratories. Access to these benefits is made seamless through a text-based chatbot available on mobile phones, catering to both patients and providers. Patients can easily top up their health savings wallets by purchasing health points using local mobile money wallets or cash. Supporting family members, whether abroad or within the country, can contribute directly to patients’ healthcare expenses by purchasing and sending health points to their NaYa wallets. Since health points are redeemable exclusively for healthcare services or medicines, donors can rest assured that their contributions are used solely for health-related purposes. Both patients and donors have real-time access to care delivery histories through phone notifications and an online portal. Patients simply present their phone numbers to providers to exchange health points for services or medicines.

By combining contributions from donors, patients, and network rebates, NaYa helps build patients’ health savings, enabling access to healthcare services and medicines at affordable rates. Beyond improving affordability, the platform allows providers to record verified health data, supporting the surveillance of health needs in vulnerable populations. This data-driven approach strengthens the foundation for responsive and resilient healthcare interventions, addressing the dual challenges of climate change and shifting epidemiologic patterns.

In Cameroon, financial barriers and rising out-of-pocket healthcare costs prevent over one-third of patients from seeking timely care. Chronic patients, in particular, face the dual challenge of managing endemic infectious diseases alongside long-term chronic conditions.

NaYa is making a tangible difference. Over 300 patients have accessed essential chronic medications through the platform, avoiding impoverishing treatment costs that could worsen their conditions. Among its impactful initiatives, donors using NaYa have improved access to vital medicines for 30 families with children affected by sickle cell disease. Female caregivers, who often bear the financial burden of healthcare, save more than 30% monthly on chronic medication costs, alleviating economic strain.

Beyond direct patient support, NaYa contributes to systemic improvements in healthcare. The platform has generated over 1,400 health data points, providing valuable insights to optimize the healthcare supply chain. These data-driven insights ensure better resource allocation and supply management for underserved populations.

The overall impact of NaYa’s platform is profound: it ensures vulnerable patients gain timely access to essential care, reducing the financial stress of healthcare costs and improving care availability. By creating a managed primary care network that includes labs, pharmacies, and clinics, NaYa fosters continuity of care. This network effect strengthens cost-saving behaviors while promoting positive health-seeking habits, such as adherence to prescribed therapies, among low-income patients.

Through its innovative approach, NaYa not only addresses immediate healthcare needs but also empowers communities to build resilience and improve long-term health outcomes.