Sitha Maliwa
We scroll, swipe, and tap our way through life. Our money lives online. Our food arrives by app. We fall in love through a screen. So why, when it comes to our health – something that can mean the difference between life and death – do we still insist on waiting in lines, battling traffic, and sitting in silent waiting rooms?
Why are we afraid to let healthcare evolve?
“It’s fascinating,” says Tania Joffe, founder of South Africa’s digital health app, Unu Health. “We’ve embraced digital services in almost every area of our lives -except healthcare. The big question is: Why not health? Why not now?”
The question echoes loudly in a country where millions are held hostage by geography, bureaucracy, and stigma. A simple doctor’s visit can mean hours in transit, a day off work, or enduring the quiet shame of explaining personal symptoms to a stranger behind a clipboard. And still, we hesitate.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the world’s hand. For a brief moment, telehealth wasn’t a luxury or an experiment – it was survival. People turned to their phones not for likes, but for lifesaving answers. And then, as the world reopened, many turned back. As if nothing had changed.
“There’s something very freeing about asking a virtual assistant about something you might be too embarrassed to say out loud,” says Joffe. “AI allows for privacy, convenience, and even emotional safety – three things that traditional healthcare sometimes struggles to deliver all at once.”
In an age of algorithms and automation, artificial intelligence may still sound clinical, cold, even risky. But in the realm of healthcare, it’s already proving to be anything but. It’s a quiet revolution: AI flagging dangerous symptoms before a doctor is ever involved. AI is helping patients understand what’s happening inside their own bodies. And increasingly, AI is delivering care to people who might otherwise get none.
“We’re not talking about replacing doctors,” Joffe clarifies. “We’re talking about enhancing access by making a real doctor consultation available on your phone, using video, chat or voice, assessing your symptoms through a triage that uses AI-based logic, and supporting a temperature measurement using your phone camera.”
For many South Africans, this could mean everything. In rural areas, where clinics are few and far between, it could mean the difference between treatment and tragedy. For young people afraid to speak about mental health, or for women facing judgment in a clinic queue, it could mean reclaiming dignity.
“Telehealth can bridge gaps in access, affordability, and dignity,” Joffe adds. “And AI can personalise care in a way that empowers people to take control of their own health.”
But this isn’t just about technology. It’s about trust. It’s about confronting our own resistance to change – our discomfort with the unfamiliar. We trust apps with our money, our meals, and our secrets. Yet we pause when it comes to our health.
“We want people to start talking about this,” says Joffe. “It’s time to ask ourselves: What’s holding us back? Is it a habit? Is it fear? Because the tech is already here – and it’s getting better every day.”
Healthcare is evolving – with or without us. The future isn’t arriving tomorrow. It’s here. Now. On your phone. In your pocket. And the question isn’t whether it works. It’s whether we’re willing to use it. Do you? Don’t you? – @NewsSA_Online
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