By Adesina Wahab

Africa’s leading grassroots-focused basic healthcare provider, Pre Diagnosis International, has announced the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer to drive and inject new vitality into its vision of delivering healthcare to the vulnerable population in Nigeria under its Basic Available and Affordable public healthcare mantra.

A statement by the PDI Group Chairman, Dr. Elliott Scott Omose, said the appointment of the new CEO, Dr. Seun Egbewunmi, marks a vital stage in the rescaling of the PDI Nigerian business to effectively position it as the West African hub in the global PDI investment and operational template.

He said with PDI’s increasing footprints across East, West and Central Africa, there is a growing need to continually retool and redesign operations and service delivery machinery across countries in line with best international practices that preserve the core of the PDI founding mission.

“PDI is relentlessly pushing to remain Africa’s most innovative, not-for-business public healthcare services provider with unwavering focus on helping to deliver the United Nations’ 2030 Millennium Development Goals Agenda on Access to Public healthcare by the vulnerable populations. And we have been doing this without losing sight of our proudly Nigerian origin and foundational vision.

“As a brand conceived and birthed in Nigeria with the mission to drive public healthcare accessibility across the African continent, PDI continues to see Nigeria as an important pillar of its growth and development which is why the appointment of a new CEO for our Nigerian business is a great strategic step in our developmental journey”

The PDI Chairman described the new helmsman, Dr. Egbewunmi, as a professional medical doctor with extensive certification and experience in business, commercial strategy and operations management.

“Apart from being a medical doctor who graduated from the University of Lagos, the new CEO is also an alumnus of the Plymouth Marjon University (UK), with various managerial certifications from Lagos Business School, the Metropolitan School of Business and Management (UK) and the International Business Institute (Berlin- Germany). More importantly, he also parades multi-sector business leadership and management experience, including heading

and managing extensive multinational healthcare businesses across West and central Africa”.

Dr. Omose said the new CEO’s exciting profile would help to revitalize strategies to further optimize the impact of PDI’s various ongoing partnership collaborations and initiatives targeted at taking affordable, accessible and efficient healthcare delivery to hard-to-reach areas in the country.

Established over a decade ago, PreDiagnosis International (PDI) is Nigeria’s first fully Non-profit, Non-Governmental Organisation with a mandate to offer Nigerians and Africans unrestrained access to healthcare via emerging mass market based technologies.

In 2020, it launched the PDI Alternative Basic Primary Healthcare Model with the mantra Reach, Rescue and Fortify. Since then, it has single-handedly financed several sustainable

health projects targeted at vulnerable Nigerians and Africans in general, with the objective of providing basic health support to 2 million Nigerians annually and 50 million Africans.

With its hybrid Basic Public Health model, it combines E-Clinic, Mobile Clinic and Walk-in Clinic offerings under a single platform for effective delivery of Universal Health Coverage plans to vulnerable populations across the African countries where it has established footprints.

Through its Community Blood Pressure Advocacy (COBPA) initiative that was set up specifically to leverage the average Nigerian to sensitize their rural communities on the dangers of High Blood Pressure through which the sudden death and sudden slump syndrome owing to unmanaged Blood Pressure can be arrested without delay, it has

been able to reach, rescue and manage the BP Health of 500,000 Nigerian BP Patients yearly free of charge.

It also recruits and maintains thousands of trained and certified Auxiliary BP reps in communities across Nigeria to undertake this assignment.

Through another of its initiatives, the PDI Doctor-To-Patient-Consultation-On-Telephone (PDI DOCTOPCOT) Service Network, which is a project designed to run on the existing PDI Telehealth Platform, it has continued to offer poor and vulnerable Nigerians opportunity to sign up for free to the PDI Telehealth platform and enjoy free, unrestrained consultation with PDI doctors via telephone.

To join the platform, a citizen needs to register with just Name, Date of Birth, Address and a functional Telephone line.

Outside Nigeria, the organisation has strong footholds in Sierra Leone, Gambia, Togo and a few other African countries.