Temie Giwa-Tubosun is the 32-year-old creative force behind LifeBank, an innovative approach to healthcare that can mean the difference between life and death. Having had a patient died from post-partum haemorrhaging with no blood available, Giwa-Tubosun was determined to find an answer. Her resolve was amplified when she gave birth to her own son and experienced the same problems Aisha did. “I survived because I was in the United States and was lucky though to have access to good healthcare,” said Giwa-Tubosun. “After that, I decided to move back home to Nigeria and help solve the problem of maternal mortality.”
According to the World Health Organization, shortages of essential supplies, especially blood, cause 26,000 women to die in childbirth in Nigeria every year; worldwide, these shortages are the highest cause of maternal mortality. So she and two young IT experts came up with the application that was the bedrock of LifeBank, launched in December 2015. “Basically, we use our platform to help hospitals locate essential medical supplies such as blood, oxygen and vaccines, and we deliver these supplies to them, maintaining the proper conditions along the way,” said Giwa-Tubosun.
LifeBank guarantees a 55-minute delivery window and uses a cold-chain system that keeps blood, plasma and platelets viable even in Nigeria’s hot and humid climate. Deliveries are made on motorbikes to get around Lagos’s traffic and poor infrastructure, and transport boxes have Bluetooth padlocks, ensuring that only the intended recipient can open them.
Giwa-Tubosun says that her innovations are transforming the way both blood banks and hospitals operate. She would like to see her concept become a reality for all of Nigeria’s hospitals, but that will take time. The country’s population is almost 200 million; Lagos State, the base for LifeBank’s operations, has almost 18 million residents. The numbers seem daunting, but in its first two years and with less than US$50,000 in funding, Life Bank signed up 94 hospitals, delivered more than 8,000 units of blood—and saved 1,800 lives.
This past January, investors pledged another US$200,000 to LifeBank, and Giwa-Tubosun now plans to expand operations to the Nigerian capital of Abuja and the northern state of Kaduna. Quite an accomplishment in a country where simply being a woman—let alone a woman entrepreneur—can be a daily challenge.
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Source: Egypt Independent, 7 March 2018