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In South Africa, a driver’s license is the official document which authorizes the holder to drive a motor vehicle. Obtaining a driver’s license is a big step towards independence. Unfortunately, it must also be renewed every five years, which can be a frustrating process due to long queues and current backlogs where drivers are likely to experience delays.

As of January 2022, the Department of Transport has confirmed a backlog of almost 2.1 million licenses which have been affecting motorists and the number is increasing. Currently, motorists are frustrated by the long wait for their driver’s license renewals and have been dealing with a yearlong wait for their renewed licenses. This has forced most of them to apply for temporary licenses, a cheaper alternative that is only valid for 6 months.

Mobile license renewal offices could be one of the solutions for reducing long queues in the Traffic Department offices. Several Government institutions have been making use of mobile offices to take services directly to communities and fight the war against queues at their offices. These include the Department of Labour, Gauteng Department of Economic Development, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform as well as the National Home Builders Registration Council, amongst others.

How would the mobile office work?

The mobile office is a technologically developed ‘bus’ that allows the community to do photocopies of their I.D, take the required amount of black-and-white ID photographs, complete eye tests and the option of receiving prescription glasses if needed, as well as receiving assistance with the application form for a new driver’s license. These offices also give motorists the opportunity to pay for their outstanding traffic fines. 

It is to be made a priority that the community receives their renewed licenses within the four to six weeks timeframe stipulated.

Currently, people travel long distances to get to town for renewing their driver’s license with little resources, this is because most traffic departments are in urban areas and even these are not able to deal with the current demand. Mobile units are the solution, and they will have the following benefits:

• The service will benefit the elderly, people living with disabilities.
• It will save people time and money spent on going to the Traffic Department for driver’s license renewal.
• It will save the Department of Transport money, as they will not have to invest in expensive brick-and-mortar facilities.
• It will offer flexibility to the Department of Transport, in a way that mobiles can quickly and easily be deployed to areas where demand is high.
• This service will relieve the overworked staff and reduce the backlog in issuing the renewed licenses.

The mobile driver’s license solution will increase licensed vehicles and safety on South African roads. Investment in mobile units is the way to go if we want to improve service delivery in the country.

Access to quality healthcare is a fundamental human need, but unfortunately, many disadvantaged areas such as rural areas and townships have limited access to quality healthcare services. However, mobile healthcare has emerged as an innovative solution to bridge the gap and ensure that quality healthcare services are accessible and available to everyone, regardless of their location or socio-economic status.

Kaiser Permanente’s Early Innovations

One of the early pioneers of mobile healthcare is Kaiser Permanente, who introduced mobile healthcare clinics in the 1970s to serve disadvantaged communities. Today, mobile healthcare clinics are still operational in many parts of the United States, providing access to quality healthcare services to millions of people.

Impact of Mobile Clinics in South Africa

In South Africa, mobile healthcare has proved to be a valuable tool in dealing with the HIV pandemic, with over 7.7 million people living with HIV. The BroadReach project, which operated between 2016 and 2017, fast-tracked the testing and treatment of HIV using mobile health clinics. The project was a tremendous success, testing over 24,585 people in just seven months, with 50% of them being male, the highest male testing rate reported by an HIV project.

Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lung Institute deployed 10 TB mobile clinics in early 2021 provide rapid testing in poor communities, bridging the gap created by the pandemic and fast-tracking the diagnosis and treatment of TB.

Impact of Mobility on Healthcare Internationally

he impact of mobile healthcare is not limited to South Africa. The Mobile 1000 project, launched in India, aims to provide 1000 mobile healthcare vans that offer free primary healthcare to 25 million people in rural areas. The project has already reached 13.67 million people from 1560 villages across 15 states of India with just 205 mobiles.  

Additionally, the Mobile Health Map, a collaborative research community that evaluates the impact of mobile clinics, has found that mobile healthcare is cost-effective, does not compromise the quality of care provided, and helps to alleviate stress on the healthcare system. The Mobile Health Map has also reported a significant reduction in emergency room visits in areas where mobile clinics operate due to early screening and detection of potential high-risk health issues. 

In conclusion, mobile healthcare is an innovative solution that can revolutionize healthcare access and delivery in disadvantaged areas. With the advances in technology, such as telehealth, the benefits of mobile healthcare are expected to expand throughout South Africa and the world. At Guud, we are passionate about supporting life-changing, community-enhancing mobile healthcare projects and believe that these projects can have a significant impact on people’s lives.

Conversations about healthcare tend to focus mainly on issues of cost and quality. There’s debate about health insurance, health as a public service, and the standard of facilities. We quite frequently talk about the who and the what of healthcare, but we only very rarely discuss the where. For those living in urban areas, and particularly in wealthier districts, access to high-quality healthcare facilities is a given. In a nice, well-developed city neighbourhood, a good hospital is as much of a certainty as having a nearby police station or firehouse is. Comprehensive, quality care is almost always only a few minutes’ drive away. This is however unfortunately not how everyone lives. For much of the world’s population, the reality is starkly different.

In rural communities, small towns and sparsely populated, isolated regions, the nearest hospital could be hours, or even days away. By their nature, large medical facilities, which incorporate a full range of specialist services, need high population density. Without the economies of scale that urban environments provide, these sorts of places are not financially sustainable. This is where mobile health comes in. Population density is not a problem for vehicular facilities. They go to where the people are, covering as many, or as few, locations as needed.

Mobile health facilities do not only serve out of the way places though. Even in the heart of urban centres, there are people who do not have good healthcare access. People living in informal settlements, and those in impoverished, underserved communities, commonly do not have the sort of comprehensive infrastructure that those in more developed city neighbourhoods have. They may have to travel a long way to find care – particularly if the only nearby options are the expensive, private healthcare facilities.

In both sorts of communities, where brick and mortar facilities either cannot reach, or cannot survive, vehicle-based facilities are essential. In recent years however, mobile health solutions have been creating additional opportunities. Advancements in technology and the miniaturisation of medical equipment has made it possible to do far more with a facility on wheels than ever before. In the past, only basic primary and preventative care could reliably be provided from a mobile platform, but now, mobile facilities can do virtually anything their brick-and-mortar counterparts can – more if you count the fact they can move around.

So today, mobile health facilities serve people in many environments. They travel to care facilities for routine checks, and private homes for x-rays and dialysis. There are even mobile MRI scanners. Vehicular healthcare solutions are able to provide access to every type of care needed, wherever it is needed. Convenient, flexible, and extensible, they are transforming the way healthcare networks operate. Brick and mortar hospitals and clinics cannot scale to meet increased demand. They cannot be moved to respond to epidemics and disasters. They cannot cost-effectively meet the healthcare needs of people outside of established, densely populated urban areas. And they cannot visit people at their homes. Mobile facilities can.