CareCode

Inspiration, how we built the project, Benefits of the project and Challenges that were succumbed In rural areas like Mokgatla, Northwest, the elderly patients miss medication pickups not only because of missing files or lack of stock, but also because they don’t have transport, this results to missed treatments and sometimes life-threatening outcomes. In addition, it is unfortunate that only privileged villagers who have the financial strength to travel to other villages to seek for medical assistance leaving the unprivileged a distasteful circumstance. Majority of clinics in villages are still stuck up on having a paper-based filling system leading to misplaced patient files, there is no stock taking and there is an absence of a communication system between patients and clinics. The result of having lack of resources impacts the community negatively, which leads to a delay in treatment. Our application will have the ability to operate offline during outages, as we have discovered that rural areas experience a lot of outages and network problems. This system will bridge the gap of having a lack of communication system, it will alert health workers when the supply is low, it will inform patients when their medication is ready for collection at a designated date and time to avoid congestion. For example: “Hello Mrs Maphefo, your medication is ready for collection at Mokgatla Clinic. Pick time: 09:00 – 10:00 and transportation has been arranged.” This application will log the patient’s location ad it will queue them for police or community officers for transport assistance. Officers will receive a mapped patrol route with the list of patients, a pickup route which is algorithmically based, and the clinic drop off time. The application will be friendly based; it will have mobile accessibility features where they will be able to store in the patient’s data/ records digitally and it can track medication stock in real time even offline. This application matters because members from various villages have countless of times missed their checkups because of lack of remembrance. This implementation prevents life threatening problems. It is unfortunate that that rural areas must suffer only because they are not in touch with the modern technology. Our apps approach thus bridges this technological divide by being accessible through simple USSD applications, which are inclusive of those who do not have access to modern smartphones. The theme of Safety: A study by Meel (2017) looked into the statistical representation of rape per age range, and found that “ The highest percentage (45.5%) of women were aged between 65 and 70 years” In rural communities, elderly women are often targeted, raped, exploited and medication is in demand from opportunists who crush it and smoke it under the notorious name “Nyaope Boys”. It is thus vital to create protections for these women. Reference: SAHRC. 2024. SAHRC Condems Incidents of Violence Against Older Persons. Accessed at: link