In Nigeria, healthcare is a luxury many cannot afford. Dr Yetunde Ayo-Oyalowo, seeing this gap, pictured a solution that would bring healthcare to the people right where the lower and middle classes could access it. She saw local vendors and workers who could not afford or access clinics. She founded Market Doctors, a mobile health initiative to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, and available for them.
Ayo-Oyalowo is bringing medical attention to marginalised individuals in Lagos State through her out-of-the-box initiative, Market Doctors, which brings medical care directly to the people in the market.
“People were shocked to see a real medical doctor in the market, and they started lining up for medical checkups,” Dr Ayo-Oyalowo shares on Instagram.
Bridging health access gap with Market Doctors
With her mobile healthcare model, Yetunde Ayo-Oyalowo has brought healthcare directly to the people. Market Doctors, equipped with mobile clinics, travel to Nigeria’s busiest markets, offering affordable, on-the-spot consultations, treatments, and preventive care. This approach has scrapped the need for people to travel long distances or pay exorbitant fees to get essential medical attention.
Since its inception, Market Doctors has touched the lives of over 400,000 patients across Nigeria, providing them with essential medical services they wouldn’t have usually reached. Within local communities, mothers have been able to relieve their children’s ailments, workers have been able to return to their jobs pain-free, and people with access to these markets no longer have to choose between their livelihoods and their well-being.
Yetunde Ayo-Oyalowo organises medical missions and outreach across Nigeria and has successfully implemented health-related CSR. Her initiative has partnered with LASUBEB to organise a children’s day event for pupils of selected primary schools in Surulere, Lagos. Market Doctors, alongside other partners, provided health care services like vision screening and medical checks for the teachers and parents present.
This remarkable work in healthcare has earned the brilliant Doctor global recognition, with accolades from prestigious organisations like the UN, alongside the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She was also named a 2021 Arica Business Heroes Top 50 finalist and a Cartier Women’s Initiative fellow.
