How Sehat Kahani Is Solving Rural Healthcare in Pakistan Through Female Doctors
- yanabijoor
- 5 minutes ago
- 4 min read
What is the problem?
Rural healthcare in Pakistan is plagued by two problems. One problem is that 210 million Pakistanis lack access to basic health care. Rural women are the worst affected, as cultural traditions discourage them from visiting clinics run by male doctors.
The other problem is the “Doctor Brides” problem—meaning that Pakistan produces many female doctors and then loses them. Around 70% of medical students in Pakistan are female, but fewer than 23% become practicing physicians after completing their education.
They leave their studies or quit working after marriage due to family pressure and regulations that make it difficult for them to work in hospitals full-time.
What is the solution?
Sehat Kahani means “story of health” in Urdu, and it’s a telemedicine portal that addresses both these problems.
Doctors, particularly female doctors, who abandoned their profession can work part-time from home using the Sehat Kahani platform.
Patients living in cities download the consumer app and, within 60 seconds, get connected to a doctor. They can also have their lab tests and medicines delivered to their homes.
Patients living in rural areas who might not have a phone visit the e-Health clinic managed by a trained community health worker. The health worker arranges the video consultation with the doctor, translates medical jargon into the local language, and assists the patient in following up on the prescription and referral.
What is the business model?
Sehat Kahani is a for-profit health-tech social enterprise that generates income from three sources.
1) Corporate wellness partnerships, in which companies pay to provide their employees with access to telemedicine services. At least 800 firms had partnered with Sehat Kahani as of 2023.
2) Direct payments from consumers for on-demand consultations, laboratory services, and drug deliveries via the mobile application, which is used in more than 310 cities and towns in Pakistan.
3) Contracts with government bodies, non-governmental organizations, and foreign donors to establish e-Health Clinics for rural, refugee, and internally displaced populations. This income allows Sehat Kahani to serve people who would never be able to afford the full costs, whereas corporate and consumer income helps sustain the platform’s operations.
How is it structured and funded?
Sehat Kahani was founded in 2017 by Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram and Dr. Iffat Zafar Aga, who are both doctors. The company is headquartered in Karachi.
The total capital raised is about $4.2 million. The Series A deal made Sehat Kahani the first-ever all-women-led Pakistani startup to close a Series A round. The company has also received grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GSMA, and the World Health Organization.
Why is it innovative?
Pakistan does not need more doctors. It needs its doctors to keep working under conditions that suit them. In telemedicine, a doctor can consult from home during hours she selects, without traveling to a hospital or staying there during night shifts. Another innovative aspect of Sehat Kahani’s solution is the creation of the e-Health clinic model. In rural areas of Pakistan, patients may have no access to the Internet at home, or even if they do, they may be reluctant to use an app or discuss health issues in an online video consultation.
Sehat Kahani employs community health workers who run the clinic, arrange the online video consultation for the patient, translate necessary medical terminology into the local dialect, and assist the patient in implementing the instructions after the consultation. The company is now developing AI-based predictive models for clinical decision-making and precision medicine.
What is the impact?
Sehat Kahani has made the following impact:
Enlisted a global network of more than 8,000 health-care professionals, mostly female (about 90%)
Started 62 e-Health clinics in Pakistan
Serving 800+ corporate clients and 10 million lives in Pakistan
Offered more than 4.3 million consultations
What needs to improve?
Sehat Kahani faces three key challenges. First, venture investment in Pakistan's health-tech space is very limited. For instance, Sehat Kahani's $2.7 million Series A was the largest round for any telehealth start-up in Pakistan, underscoring the market's small size. Sehat Kahani will need to raise far more venture capital to achieve its proclaimed vision of expansion beyond Pakistan and international impact, and international impact investors are not always interested in investing in Pakistan.
Second, implementing the e-Health clinic concept carries high costs. There is a need to recruit, train, and supervise community health workers. Clinics in rural areas require advanced equipment, reliable connectivity, and logistics for delivering medicines and laboratory tests. Scaling from 62 clinics to hundreds will significantly increase operational complexity.
Third, the transition to AI-powered decision-making raises serious concerns about patient data privacy, informed consent, and algorithmic bias in a country with paper-based medical records and evolving health data regulations.
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