Idea 357 of 500. Cluster 17: Health, care and the parents of Sri Lankans abroad
Diabetes and hypertension management clinics, since these are the diseases the island has
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans abroad have parents at home whom they cannot look after from Melbourne. They will pay, and the money stays.
Every idea in cluster 17 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Offer free blood-pressure and blood-sugar checks for one Saturday morning in a temple hall, a church hall or a market, staffed by a nurse you pay for the day. Give each person their readings on a card and ask whether they would pay a monthly fee for regular checks, a kept record and reminders. The sign-up list with phone numbers is your proof of demand.
- Who pays first
- An adult child, at home or abroad, whose parent has been told to watch their sugar or pressure and never goes back for a check.
- What leaves today
- Care for the island's commonest long-term conditions is scattered and unrecorded; a clinic with kept records builds a local business on steady monthly fees.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. EightWhat It Costs to Go First
Remittances and what it costs the first one to go - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
The institutions already in existence that could carry value back
More from cluster 17
- 341Home-care agencies with trained, vetted carers, booked and paid from abroad
- 342Assisted-living homes for the parents of Sri Lankans abroad, with the standard published and inspected
- 343A daily check-in service: a nurse's visit, a photograph, a message to the child abroad
- 344Medical escort services: a nurse takes the parent to the appointment and reports back
- 345Pharmacy delivery with the prescription managed and the refills tracked
- 346Dementia day-care centres, which hardly exist yet and are needed everywhere
Idea 357 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.