Making a difference

SOUTH AFRICA has a particularly good reputation for doctors worldwide, but we are especially impressed by two Cape Town doctors, Dr Yaseen Khan and Dr Mohammed Dalwai, who combined their medical knowledge and technological savvy to win the Big Impact Award at a prestigious ceremony in Barcelona earlier this month.

The fact that they piloted the app, called The Mobile Triage App, at the Khayelitsha District Hospital, known for its overcrowded and stressful conditions, is testament to their dedication to getting real help to the poor. The Mobile Triage App assists in triaging critical patients and is certain to save many lives. Already, it has been shown to increase triage accuracy by 88 percent and decrease the time it takes to triage by 50 percent.

There are many successful entrepreneurs in this country, and if just some of them put aside a portion of their earnings to develop products that can help the poor or the sick, we can become world leaders in such a regard. Why not?

And while we are not all as gifted, scientific and knowledgeable as doctors Khan and Dalwai, we ought also to apply our minds to helping the poor and the sick. It’s a question of thinking out of the box and coming up with ways to assist charities or non-profit organisations, and even informal organisations.

Even if one can’t come up with something groundbreaking, random acts of kindness can also go a long way in putting a smile on someone’s face – not to mention your own. Helping feels good.

Buy the Big Issue if you can afford it, help wheel someone to their destination in their wheelchair or give up your seat on the train to an old person. Take your old clothes to Tears. Spend some time at a state hospital washing patients’ hair or just read to them for a while. Give of your time and know that you are helping someone else and yourself too.

And, if you do have what it takes to develop groundbreaking apps, if not now then when?