BRIDGING medical emergency services gap in Lesotho and saving lives, which could otherwise be needlessly lost, is Vitality Health Lesotho's primary mission.
This is according to Vitality Health Lesotho Executive Director, Semethe Raleche, who in a recent interview told the Lesotho Times that their vision of saving lives, was driven by numerous rejections from insurance companies that they had wanted to collaborate with.
Founded in 2014, Vitality Health Lesotho offers pre-hospital emergency services with a clear vision to save lives.
Mr Raleche said they had engaged medical insurance companies and proposed various collaborative initiatives.
Unfortunately, most of the medical insurance businesses would not place trust in them as a start-up entity and rejected their proposals, he said.
Those rejections compelled them to become more innovative. They noticed that Lesotho was in dire need of emergency medical services.
Thus, Mr Raleche recounted, they drafted a strategy to save lives, launching their hospital emergency services in Lesotho in 2019.
They kicked off their business with just one ambulance, later introducing their own medical insurance products.
"After two rejections, we were left with no option but to establish our own internal medical insurance products offering Basotho unlimited access to emergency and medical clinical services, as well as access to hospital cashback should they be hospitalised," Mr Raleche said.
"That was the first generation of our medical insurance products. We cannot say that we have made it. We feel that we are still at the very beginning of our growth and anticipate expanding with time."
According to Mr Raleche, the company had witnessed immense growth over the years, having graduated from owning one ambulance in 2019 to four today.
"We provide support in the ambulance services space. We operated in that area for some years, until we saw that the market sort of needed specialised services in the pre-hospital emergency space. This came largely because of personal experiences. At one stage, I had personal experiences where some close relatives of mine had injuries that required pre-hospital emergency care but were not available," Mr Raleche said.
He said lifesaving emergency services prevented people from dying needlessly. They had thus invested heavily in the pre-hospital emergency space.
The rejections by insurance companies, he added, did not discourage them. Instead, they were inspired to "go ahead and procure our first advanced life support ambulance".
"This is where our competitive edge came in and we were able to sell a good story to Basotho," he said.
He said over time, they had become an evolving company, largely picking from the needs of the society.
Their most imperative need, he said, was to close the gap around pre-hospital emergency risks and to "further identify other risks around the healthcare space".
Mr Raleche said they had recently added pharmaceuticals into their service basket.
"We do retail pharmacy, cleaning and emergency services," he said.
The company had received a lot of attention and been able to broaden its membership base especially during the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020.
"We had clients at risk under our medical insurance product (during Covid), whose lives we were able to save through emergency medication including oxygen.
"During that time, we were even called an oxygen supplier because we always had oxygen available in our reserves to cater for the population," he said.
He said they were the first company to introduce a Covid Management Programme resulting in insurance companies approaching them to place their members under that programme
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During the Covid 19 pandemic, Vitality Health became a pillar of strength for several sectors, he said, adding that they had "never lost a patient under our care".
Because Lesotho was overwhelmed during that period, Mr Raleche recalled how they provided medical emergency responses, moving critically ill patients from one facility to another.
They further provided tailored health care to critically ill patients under their Covid Management Programmes.
Despite the challenges and rejections along the way, Mr Raleche no longer regards rejection as a bad thing but "a blessing in disguise" because if compels you to think and be innovative.
He said rejection was what fuelled their creativity, encouraging them to look for other services to provide.
"Sometimes when you are rejected, it is not always a bad thing. It could be a good thing, leading to innovation and success," he concluded.
