If you have ever found yourself in an emergency and had to call for help, you will know that waiting for an ambulance to arrive can be agonizing.
According to this article from Bayer Foundation, In Kenya, the average response time for an ambulance is 162 minutes. Addresses are often inaccurate or non-existent resulting in responders getting lost trying to locate users in distress. Compounded with long travel times, this can be detrimental for people in urgent need of assistance. In medical emergencies, every second counts, and waiting over 2 hours for an ambulance to arrive often means the difference between life and death due to the delay of care.
Warren Myers, CEO of AURA, Kenya’s fastest-growing on-demand medical and security response platform, says that Kenya’s current emergency response landscape fails to deliver an essential service that all Kenyan citizens deserve. The average ambulance response time in Nairobi is well under the seven-minute international standard, meaning that people frequently cannot get the lifesaving care they need in the minutes after a traumatic event.
Complicating matters further are the plethora of numbers to call in an emergency. Knowing the numbers for the various emergency response services in Kenya offhand, such as AMREF flying doctors, The Kenya Red Cross Ambulance Society, and private ambulance services, is overwhelming to someone who is already fraught with trying to access help.
Myers says that technology platforms such as AURA can significantly reduce emergency response times by streamlining the existing processes for getting help. He explains that, by introducing innovative technology into the emergency response sector in Kenya, the antiquated method of calling for an ambulance service, describing the nature of the emergency and your exact location, and then waiting minutes or even hours for an ambulance to be dispatched, can now be streamlined to the simple touch of a button.
The AURA technology platform does all the legwork for you. AURA provides a unified network of all the best medical response providers in Kenya in one place, which means you never have to have an emergency response number on hand. With the simple touch of a button on your phone and GPS location tracking, AURA automatically identifies your location using an in-vehicle device strategically fitted in medical response vehicles across the country. The nearest ambulance is automatically dispatched to you. Myers describes it as “Uber for ambulances”—a service that gets you the help you need—and fast!
Dr Michelle Gathecha, a medical doctor based in Nairobi, emphasizes the need for timely and quality lifesaving emergency care to maximize chances of good clinical outcomes. “We must continue to strive to provide unrestricted access to emergency healthcare.” “I believe AURA is timely as it offers technology that bridges challenges faced in accessing emergency services across Kenya.”
If you do not have access to medical insurance but are subscribed to an AURA network partner, you are still guaranteed help. Your monthly subscription fee fully covers the expense of a private ambulance service, and the ambulance will transport you to the nearest hospital for further care. The benefit is that you can access rapid assistance from trained personnel in the minutes that matter most following a traumatic incident.
Myers believes that instant emergency response services driven by smart technology, partnered with the extensive network of emergency response providers that it connects users to in an emergency, can help stamp out the inefficiencies currently faced by the emergency response sector in Kenya. Instead of googling the closest ambulance provider or dialing multiple emergency response hotlines to request help, you can effortlessly hit a simple in-app panic button on your phone, which does all the work on your behalf.
AURA was born in 2017 out of the critical need to make private emergency and security response services more accessible and affordable in South Africa. Having proven success in the South African market, with hundreds of thousands of South Africans connected to an AURA-powered service, AURA is scaling to countries across the globe with the vision of creating a world where everyone is safe.
AURA now covers 37 towns across Kenya. With 50+ medical and security companies on our network and over 320 responders online daily, help in any emergency is now around the corner.
For more information on accessing an AURA-powered emergency response service for yourself or your customers and staff, get in touch: https://aura.services/ke/contact-us/.
