“Last year, I happened to visit the emergency department of one of the biggest government setups in order to volunteer for my share of blood to the bomb affectees. The hours that I spent there left me in a state of complete anguish and grieve. I saw people bringing in dead and pleading the doctors to bring them back to life by giving them the oxygen supply. I saw patients lying blatantly to the doctors to get away with the prescription of their suiting. I saw patients roving in scorching heat from one place to the other, trying to locate the right doctor and I saw them counting rusted coins and crumbled notes from their pockets to pay for the consultation fees or an expensive medicine. That’s when it hit me right in the gut! I didn’t know whom to blame, the corrupt system or people like myself, who are a part of this environment and still haven’t made the minutest of change in their respective capacities. And the concern within me rooted deeper WHEN I BECAME A VICTIM MYSELF.
This is the dilemma of our society. We love to ponder on developing ways in which we can facilitate people in ordering the food and cinema tickets but we fail to provide solutions which could actually help to save the life. I was stuck in a position where the path forward was unknown to me. Endless browsing online had led me to the doctor, who was of little use to me. This made me think to start something valuable. Marham, is a platform of help and dignity. It is a vision to improve healthcare in Pakistan by connecting people together through technology and empowering them with information and knowledge. We started from facilitating the user to get the right opinion from community about the best doctors, but we realized there is a lot more to be accomplished. Elimination of quakes and incompetent doctors can only be possible if there is a platform with authentic information pertaining to the certified doctors.
Every startup undergoes one common mental stress that will it be successful? But my stress was a little more than that. Am I on the right track? To convince the right people to join our journey was a great challenge, making them understand on what you believe needs a lot of energy and planning. I planned it for months and that was all paper game. Once we practically started, it took us some serious strenuous efforts to convince the doctors and the hospitals and get them on board with us. People used to think that this IT thing is all a hoax and this can’t happen in their industry. It will always be the same. Technology startups in Pakistan take a lot effort to gain the trust of the public.
This Pain which had turned into an agony had made my nights restless and days more painful. I never want to end my life like a party where I would have everything to enjoy this sojourn. I would rather prefer to end up on a life where I would have nothing but I would use all my potential to improve a single life. This is how I end up giving a new start to my life.” Ehsan Imam, Co-founder at Marham