Quito.- Healthbird, the American ‘startup’ that was going to design a management system to streamline all the procedures of Ecuadorian healthcare, announced its departure from the country due to ‘legal insecurity’ and ‘hidden interests’ that do not allow the technological transformation and modernization of public health, as explained in a statement.
According to the document, their decision is based on the lack of guarantees and legal security in the face of the “constant defamations that the American corporation has been the target of in the media.”
“These unfounded attacks are a direct affront to a company that has acted with transparency and invested significant own resources and work for the benefit of the country, during the last 18 months it has been in Ecuador,” stated the American firm.
Modernization of Public Health Remains in Place
In March of this year, and with the intention of mitigating the effects of the health crisis in the Andean country, the Government of Daniel Noboa announced the creation of a new mobile application to schedule medical appointments and optimize processes.
This was designed by Healthbird thanks to its alliance with the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) and the National Telecommunications Corporation (CNT) after the closing of a $37.7 million contract which, according to the Government and the company, was not signed.
“It is necessary to reiterate that to date Healthbird Ecuador has not received a single cent from any of the projects presented to the MSP and/or the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS),” the company continued.
«On the contrary, the company not only invested hundreds of dollars in the creation and implementation of the pilots (of the application), but has also generated sources of employment within the territory, of course with the expectation of consolidating its model in the country».
For its part, and following the company’s announcement, CNT stressed that this measure “comes after the media situation generated around the preliminary technical work that both institutions carried out” and that it was an internal and unilateral decision of the company, with which they had a “commercial agreement”.
“The aforementioned commercial agreement between CNT and HealthBird did not generate any budgetary impact for CNT,” they explained.
It was also pointed out that the intention of the agreement was to streamline the Ecuadorian health system and reduce up to 416 million dollars, but that the entity’s withdrawal will not influence its commitment and operations to modernize the Ecuadorian State.
