Dr. Chidi Okonkwo
General practice · Enugu
Igbo, English₦1,500
Portfolio conceptSHATS is a design project, not a live service. No real doctors or patients are shown, and no consultation can be booked.
Get careIGBO · HAUSA · YORÙBÁ · PIDGIN · ENGLISH
Six hours to the nearest doctor.Now six minutes.
SHATS connects rural communities to real Nigerian doctors — by video, by voice, or from a basic phone with no internet at all. And a trained health worker in your own village to sit beside you while you talk.
No smartphone, no data? Dial *737# from any phone.
See the whole journey
The problem
In rural Nigeria, distance is the disease.
Most Nigerians who die of treatable illness do not die because the medicine does not exist. They die because the road to it is too long, too expensive, or too late at night to travel.
0.0
doctors per 10,000 people
The WHO's minimum threshold for adequate coverage is 10. Nigeria has never reached it.
0%
live outside the cities
Where the fewest doctors, clinics and ambulances are. World Bank, 2024.
0.0%
of the world's maternal deaths
Happen in this one country. WHO, Trends in Maternal Mortality, 2023.
How it works
Four steps. That is the whole thing.
No forms to fill. No words to spell. Every screen asks one question and reads it out loud if you want it to.
1
You say what is wrongin your own words.
Tap the picture that matches how you feel. Press Listen and the question is read to you in Igbo, Hausa, Yorùbá or Pidgin. Nothing has to be typed, and nothing has to be spelled.
Question 1 of 3
What is wrong?
Listen in IgboFever
Ahụ ọkụ
Cough
Ụkwara
Belly pain
Afọ mgbu
Cannot sleep
Anaghị ehi ụra
2
You choose the doctorand you see the price first.
Real Nigerian doctors, with the languages they speak and the fee they charge shown side by side. You agree the price before anything begins. There is no second bill at the end.
Choose a doctor
CODr. Chidi OkonkwoGeneral practice · Enugu₦1,500
ABDr. Amina BelloFamily medicine · Kano₦2,000
This is the whole price. Nothing is added at the end.
3
You talk to the doctorand you are not alone.
Video when the network is strong, voice when it is weak — it changes by itself and you never have to know why. If you want, the health worker in your village sits beside you and holds the phone.
CO
Dr. Chidi Okonkwo
You are connected · 04:12The network got weak, so we moved you to voice. The doctor can still hear you.
Ngozi Eze, your health worker, is in the room with you.
4
Your medicine and recordand help when it is urgent.
The prescription goes to the chemist nearest you, and the record stays yours whether you are online or not. If it turns into an emergency, one press reaches a health worker, a doctor and a facility at the same time.
After the visit
Coartem1 tablet, twice a day, for 3 daysReady at Eze Chemist
Your record was saved — on SHATS and on your own phone.
If it becomes an emergencyOne press reaches your health worker, a doctor and the nearest facility at once.
Why this one works here
Built for what you have, not what you are missing.
Most telemedicine assumes a smartphone, a data plan, a card and a shared language. In rural Nigeria that is four assumptions too many.
Works on a phone with no internet
Dial *737# and book a doctor through a menu, the same way you buy airtime. No app, no data, no smartphone.
Works when the network is down
Your health worker's phone keeps working offline and sends everything the moment there is signal again.
Pay the way you already pay
MTN MoMo, OPay, bank transfer — or cash handed to your health worker, receipted on the spot.
Speaks the way you speak
Igbo, Hausa, Yorùbá, Pidgin and English. Every screen will read itself out loud if you ask it to.
The person in the middle
A trained neighbour,not a stranger.
SHATS does not drop an app into a village and hope. Every community has a Community Health Worker — someone from there, trained and equipped — who registers people, takes blood pressure and temperature, sits in on the consultation, and carries the cases a phone alone cannot carry.
- Registers people who have no ID and no fixed address
- Works offline all day, then syncs everything at night
- Escalates to a doctor in seconds, not days
Who you will meet
Every doctor is checked against the register before they see anyone.
Licence verified with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, identity confirmed, and every consultation recorded. If a doctor is struck off, their account closes the same day.
AB
Dr. Amina Bello
Family medicine · Kano
Hausa, English₦2,000
TA
Dr. Tunde Adeyemi
Paediatrics · Ibadan
Yorùbá, English₦2,500
When it is urgent
One press. Three people move at once.
An emergency does not wait for a booking. The alert goes out to everyone who can help at the same time, and it keeps moving down the line until somebody accepts it.
The health worker nearest you
The doctor on call
The facility with a free bed
Between visits
Plain answers, read aloud, in your own language.
Health information written for people who were never taught to read it — short, spoken, and free whether or not you ever book a consultation.
Safety and privacy
Your record belongs to you, not to a clinic.
Rural patients are used to their history living in a paper file in a building they cannot get back to. On SHATS it travels with them.
It follows you
Your history goes with you to any doctor you choose, on SHATS or off it.
Nobody looks without asking
A doctor sees your record only for the consultation you booked. Every opening is logged.
NDPR compliant
Built to the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation. Consent is recorded before anything is shared.
It knows about NHIS
If you are enrolled, your cover is applied before you are ever asked to pay.
Where to start
Somebody you love is far from a doctor.That is the whole problem we are solving.
For patients and familiesGet care for someoneBook a doctor for yourself, or for a parent in the village who cannot do it alone.For doctors and health workersPractise on SHATSSee patients from anywhere in the country, on your own hours, paid every week.
No smartphone? Dial *737# from any phone in Nigeria and a health worker will call you back.