The COVID-19 pandemic is placing enormous pressure on South African healthcare workers and hospitals. We have over 300,000 nurses working in 400 public and 200 private hospitals and each day more are contracting COVID-19.
Healthcare Workers are fearful of bringing the virus home to vulnerable loved ones in often multi-generational living situations.
Home-away-from-home initiative, Ubuntu Beds, was launched at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and continues to accommodate healthcare workers for free. In a bid to raise funds and create awareness Ubuntu Beds is hosting a Hackathon for Healthcare event on 23 – 25 April 2021. The aim is to unite the development, design, healthcare and hospitality industries and solve problems with a #techforgood focus.
Some great examples of tech helping in the medical space in 2020 included. E-hailing services used to distribute clinic issued medication during hard lockdown. WHO developed a whatsapp bot with 10 million users in first month which answered questions about covid-19? Corona Fighter webapp that tracks the symptoms of employees and visitors to ensure safety in the office buildings.
The Hackathon will be a 48-hour virtual event consisting of cross functional teams of between 4-8 developers, designers and subject matter experts. Sponsors and organisers will get the opportunity to offer up topics and datasets which inform the solutions that will be designed and implemented by the teams who will spend the 48 hours developing a possible solution. Tech solutions will be shared with appropriate stakeholders to take forward for further development.
Aimee Bell, general manager of Ubuntu beds “What we have realised through running the Ubuntu Beds platform is that healthcare workers struggle with having access to the services and support they need to fulfil their roles. We are curious about how we can help to solve these problems with the use of tech. This is why we are running this hackathon so that we can bring developers together with the healthcare industry to build this tech for good!”
In 2020, thanks to public and large corporate donations and sponsorships by private hospitals, The FirstRand SPIRE initiative, Booking.com and Airbnb, R9 million was raised in funding which paid accommodation providers for their services, which went to housing 1872 healthcare workers for a total of 28,329 nights in 1129 accommodation providers across South Africa.
Says Kim Whitaker, founder of Ubuntu Beds: “We know that many of the accommodation providers we’ve been working with, about 12 00 of them, are struggling. Despite our borders being open and domestic travel allowed, the road to recovery won’t be easy. However we are grateful to all those who have assisted us, along the way with donations. While the infection rate may be on the decline, now is the time to be vigilant and practice safety protocols. Other countries ahead of us on their curve are again seeing major spikes in infections as they experience their third wave. Ubuntu Beds will continue to accommodate healthcare workers for free as long as we’re able to keep raising funds.
Ubuntu Bed’s long term purpose it’s to create a caring community platform that matches people in need during humanitarian or natural disasters with safe spaces, development and support.
If you are interested in attending or sponsoring please contact aimee@ubuntubeds.org. Or if you’re a healthcare worker, or an NPO assisting victims of humanitarian or natural disasters needing accommodation, or a hospitality business interested in offering your rooms and services, or you want to donate, please visit https://www.ubuntubeds.org/. You can also call 0861999308 or get in touch via Whatsapp on 0713001672.
Also visit and follow Ubuntu Beds on social media
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ubuntubeds/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/ubuntubeds
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ubuntubeds/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/ubuntubeds
