In Ethiopia, access to healthcare is one of the main problems. Pregnant mothers are usually misguided with traditional ways of practicing medicine. There is also the problem of location, pregnant mothers may not be able to follow up going to hospitals because of where they live and with the Covid-19 pandemic nurses wouldn't be able to follow up on the pregnant mothers as much as they used to.
That is why a group of medical doctors created Nefsetur (ነፍሰጡር) care application. The application gives information on the effect of medications on pregnancy as well as nutrition tips for common pregnancy conditions. It is created by Tikur Azmud Medical Technologies Company which is owned by medical doctors.
Dr. Gedion Yilma is one of the creators of Tikur Azmud Medical Technology Company and the Nefsetur care application. He is one of the medical professionals working as a coordinator in the Covid-19 medical center at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University. Tikur Azmud Medical Technologies is a company that provides various types of medical information. It specializes in providing health apps, hospital administrative software, an application that assists healthcare workers in their day to day work, telemedicine services, and many more.
Nefsetur care application provides information to help improve the health of all pregnant mothers. The application contains various health and lifestyle tips, self-monitoring tools, as well as maternal and fetal wellness trackers. It also helps medical doctors and midwives by providing them contraction trackers, fetal monitors, gestational age calculators (a measure of the age of a given pregnancy) from date and ultrasounds, and many more features.
Addis Zeybe interviewed Dr. Gedion Yilma, who is one of the creators of Tikur Azmud Medical Technology Company and Nefsetur care app. Dr. Gedion says "One of the common reasons we created the application is because of our country’s misinformation regarding pregnancy. For example, traditionally it is said pregnant mothers should not drink store-bought yogurt or milk products but in reality they should drink pasteurized milk products which are provided in stores.”
Dr. Gedion says that’s why they created the application,“we decided to create an app to help pregnant mothers access accurate medical information. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, going to hospitals to follow up is difficult. But now they can follow up through their phones using the application."
Dr. Gedion confirms that the information provided in the application is fact-checked by medical doctors and researchers. According to him, he and two other doctors worked on it and two specialist doctors namely Dr. Fikremelekot Temesgen who is a specialist at Gandhi Hospital and Dr. Nega Tesfaw clinical director at MarieStopes Ethiopia vetted and confirmed the accuracy of the information provided on the app before it was made available to the public. The Nefsetur care app is available to install on playstore and the Tikur Azmud Technologies company can be reached through their social media: Telegram, Instagram, and Facebook.
