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LAGOS Psychiatrist, Dr. MAY Tells City People
Have you heard about an App which is capable of helping you attend to your health challenge from your comfort zone? There is a mobile App on the tech space which provides medical service to you in just a few clicks on your phone devices. This App is named “How Bodi” and It is an App fast gaining ground in the country. It is a mental health assessment application which gives information on the total well-being of the body. It includes tests on addiction, sleep, stress, depression and many more. This application is owned by Pinnacle Medicals Services of the renowned Psychiatrist and mental health advocate, Dr. Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri. It was produced under the Pinnacle Medicals SpeakOut initiative to increase awareness on Mental Health. The telemedicine App can be assessed on Android and Apple phones. Its introduction is a novel concept as the App is available to people home and abroad as well as those in the remotest part of Nigeria providing there is internet facility to log into. It can be summarily defined as bringing health to you at your fingertips. Dr. Maymunah and her team have done well in helping to advance the narrative of the Nigerian health sector for good. As a way of making sure nobody is left out in their bid to make their services accessible to all, they are working tirelessly in setting up the “How Bodi Mobile Booth” which would be made available at every nook and crannies of communities in Nigeria. Very soon the complaints of many people having difficulty assessing physicians to attend to their health challenges will soon become a thing of the past.
City People Jamiu Abubakar (08085185886) conducted an interview with the wave-making Dr. Maymunah who is fondly called Dr. May few weeks ago, she revealed what led to her setting up the App, how it operates, providing medical solutions to people with one health challenge or the other. Below are excerpts. Read and enjoy!
What informed that idea of setting up the ‘How Bodi’ app and the “How Bodi” mobile booth?
For ‘How Bodi’ telemedicine platform, if you understand the current trends right now, there’s an exodus of doctors, healthcare workers, mental health professionals outside the country. The thing is that they can’t go, right? Because you cannot stop people in their pursuit for happiness and in their pursuit for joy. But How Body is to bridge that gap. To bring about mental equity that is affordable, accessible, and available. Whereby culturally appropriate therapy can still be delivered to anybody just by a click of your tablet. Click and you’re talking to somebody. So those people that have been “Japad”, they can be “Japadad” by delivering their services wherever they are. So How Bodi is that digital healthcare platform that is changing their narrative, that is helping, and is AI-powered, that is helping to deliver culturally appropriate therapy to anybody, anywhere, anytime, wherever you are in the world. And for the mobile counselling booth, the reason we had to do that was we know that there are people that are in hard-to-reach communities, underserved communities. So the mobile counselling booth is solar panelled, AI-driven, and we have data to drive the platform inside the group. So we want it in every park, in every community, in every school in Nigeria. Nigeria has the highest population of young people in the world, so why can’t somebody just walk into ‘How Bodi’ counselling booth anywhere they are and just receive therapy from there? So that is why we have to just do that. This is a platform where we can also deliver it anywhere, at any point. And there are therapists online that can deliver those services. It doesn’t have to be. oh, I’m in shock now, I have a panic attack, and you have nobody to speaks to. You click in, and of course, you get somebody to speak with you. So it’s available on Google Play Store, the Apple Store is in place, we are putting it together. It has a web base. And what I asked the participant, she said to see a paediatrician, which she agreed was not cheap. ‘How Bodi’, one-hour therapy is just 15,000. We want to make it even more affordable than that. If we get the therapies that we agree on, but we are working hard to make sure the three A’s, or four A’s, of universal health coverage which is; availability, is it available? Yes. Affordability, is it affordable? Yes. Accessibility, is it accessible? Yes.
And acceptability, that people will accept and embrace it. Because we don’t want to leave anyone behind.
I learnt you offer a free mental health workshop for schools and companies. What is that about?
It’s to drive home this message. My mantra is normalizing mental health conversations by building a culture of compassion. I strongly believe if we start talking about mental health, we talk about malaria, we talk about hypertension, diabetes, people won’t be stigmatized and discriminated against anymore. People can boldly say, I have depression. People can boldly go get help when and if they need it. Not hiding and getting inappropriate help, spending more money with traditional healers or spiritual leaders in healing places that may not give them. We’re not saying those are completely bad, but we have to work together as a team. Because if we start hiding and praying, prayers may not take everything away. There’s room for prayer, but it may not take everything away from you. So it must be ensuring that we get more people recruited, hear the word, drive home the message. Because when more people know about it, there won’t be the hide and seek anymore. There won’t be people seeking help in wrong places. We can direct you to the right places, to the right people and at the right time for you to get the help that you need.
How do you combine your busy schedule being a physician and a mental health advocate among the many other roles you play?
Self-care! I’m very intentional about my self-care.
Very, very intentional! I’m not just a physician. As a psychiatrist, I manage a hospital with a team, with staff. I’m a mother, I’m a wife, I’m a sister, I’m a daughter. I have other businesses. I have a recycling business. I have a health body medicine platform. I have an NGO, Pinnacle Medical Speak Out Initiative. But again, know who you are.
Know your strengths. The power to delegate is there. Make sure you have the round pegs in the right holes. Because you cannot, the moment a leader is doing everything (10:57) by herself or himself, you are not a leader. You are a micromanager (11:01) and it can lead to burnout. So having people do that as you know, carry out the project, manage it well, and trust the process. But I’m very big on self-care. I know who I am. I know my downtime. There are some things that, you know, what happened, I just take myself out of it and I’m telling myself, at this point, I’m shutting down. I know how to say no. The vitamin N is very close to my lip. Vitamin no. I will tell you no because I know that at this point, I’m not giving my all. I want to give my all when I want to give my all. Not when I’m forced or boxed into giving my all. So I’m very big on self-care and ensuring that as a leader, I’m building on productivity. I don’t work in my hospital only twice a week. Sometimes they don’t even see me for like one month. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not working. That doesn’t mean that I’m not doing other things. I have the right team members. And also pray for the right team members because the truth is that people make it happen. If you don’t have the right team members, then you are constantly going to be stressed. So those are the things I do. I do my spa days. Mondays, I don’t work anywhere. I don’t work. So my weekends are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Then we start the work. And I put in the work. I know the time of the day that I’m most productive. I put in that work before I do other things. I know how to segregate. And when I need help, I am very good at asking for help. I don’t keep it to myself and say, I need help. Who will help me? No. Ask. It’s a strength. So ask him for help. Ensuring I have the right people in my circle. I do girls’ trips. I do girls’ brunch. I do girls’, you know, those things. I do solo trips just to reflect and all that. But in the centre of it all, I hold my God dearly. Because without him, I don’t think I can do what I’m doing now.
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