Yetunde Ayo Oyalowo

Yetunde Ayo Oyalowo is the Founder of Market Doctors, a social enterprise creating access to healthcare in the informal sector of Nigeria through mobile clinics and health posts in market locations. They are reducing the “unseen cost” of healthcare – journey times and waiting times – while creating equitable access to healthcare resources.  

Healthcare access for the informal sector is a huge challenge. Many people working in the informal sector earn a daily income where they cannot afford huge healthcare costs. They choose between healthcare, feeding themselves, or income loss. Primary Healthcare Centers [PHC] are far from where they live or work and are only utilized 20% of the time, due to poor services, prescription shortages, and lack of medical personnel for a nation of 200 million people. Market Doctors eliminates the journey time and waiting time of going to health center which comes as a cost to the patient and prevents patients from earning income during that lost time.  

In a country where unemployment rate is around 33% according to studies and the ratio of doctors to patients being 1:5000, Market Doctors had to get innovative by training health agents to act as a connection between patients and medical workers in remote communities. Over 100 health agents have been trained, alongside providing a source of income to 54 doctors, 127 nurses, and 213 administrative staff since its inception. Over the past five years, Market Doctors has had employment of 88 staff and more than 350 volunteers, of which 80% are women. 

Under Yetunde’s leadership, Market Doctors has reached over 120 000 people and conducted over 5,000 first time face to face medical consultations. Within these consultations, there have been 25% measurements in the discovery of high blood pressure amongst patients and 15% of high blood sugar. Market Doctors has executed outreach in nine states of the federation, maintains two clinics outside busy markets, and drives seven mobile clinics to over 180 communities. Market Doctors maintains partnerships with large corporations and big pharmaceutical companies with over 112 partnerships spread across various sectors.   

Oyalowo’s business supports the following SDGs:

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

SDG 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goals.