Mogul Medical Solutions, founded by managing director Menelisi Moyo, is an inspiring enterprise and one of a kind in Africa which has been built around Moyo’s dream of taking healthcare to communities no matter where they are situated in the farthest reaches of our country. And FAW is helping him to realise his dream.
“Ours is an exciting and innovative medical supplies service as we are the first and the only service provider across the continent that has a fully functional online purchase portal with over 8 000 lines on offer. We are also the only medical company with an online store on Facebook in Africa. We distribute across the whole sub-continent,” says Moyo.
“Mogul Medical is also a certified M.I.B. body builder which means we are certified to build bodies on any truck. We can also build trailers through Mogul’s new Engineering Division which builds all our mobile clinics and ambulances.”
This is where FAW trucks and FAW Vehicle Manufacturers SA comes into the picture. “We make use of the FAW truck brand because it adds to our efficiencies and helps us contain our costs,” says Moyo.
Mogul’s medical supply service is far-reaching. It covers the widest range of products from day-to-day consumable items like surgical gloves through to wheelchairs. Customers include individuals, clinics and hospitals. Major clients include many embassies across the continent.
Among partnership clients are major international donor organisations like USAID, Pepfar and UK Aid while destination countries for Mogul’s products include countries like Ethiopia, Madagascar, Botswana, Zambia, and Rwanda – wherever there is a need for medical supply shipments to be moved either in a crisis or on a routine basis.
In South Africa, one of the largest clients of Mogul’s services is the SA Government and the Department of Health. All the hospitals and brick-and-mortar clinics in the Western Cape source medical supplies through Mogul Medical Solutions. Large NGO’s supported by international funders also source supplies from Mogul, as does the TB HIV Association, an NGO which focuses on HIV prevention and care; and uses treatment kits for Diabetes, TB and for monitoring cholesterol levels.
It is in the area of mobile clinics that vehicle manufacturer FAW Vehicle Manufacturers SA enjoys its most important relationship with Mogul Medical Solutions. Two mobile clinics, built on the recently introduced FAW 8.140 FL truck chassis, have been put into service.
“These units were selected because the trucks can comfortably travel long distances from their base stations in the Western Cape to rural areas in the Eastern Cape and up to Clanwilliam. Our mobile clinics are also specifically equipped to provide circumcision services to rural communities,” says Moyo.
“The FAW trucks are kitted out exactly to our NGO clients’ needs. We brand them in the well-recognised colours and with the logos of the NGOs, so that the acceptance levels in the communities where they operate, remains constant.
“We ran other brands but decided to standardise on FAW trucks because of their affordable offering, good quality levels and superb performance from an operating-cost perspective. Aesthetically the trucks are also good-looking, as well as robust.”
Mogul Medical, together with TB HIV Association, also provides routine services to disadvantaged communities and the national prison network for a variety of services, among others, a mobile X-ray testing facility.
“It is especially our Mobile X-ray Facility, also built on the FAW 8.140 FL chassis, of which I’m most proud,” says Moyo. “The truck had to have a particularly strong chassis frame to carry the extra weight as the entire body is lead-lined. Over and above this, the drivetrain had to be powerful and efficient. It had to be of a high quality with superior durability to drive the unit efficiently en route to its destinations.”
The FAW 8.140 FL is powered by the Euro III Cummins ISF 3,8 litre engine, delivering a torque at 450Nm between 1 200 and 2 200 rpm, with an output of 105kW on tap at 2 600 rpm. This high-pressure, common rail four-cylinder in-line engine is one of the latest from Cummins’ engine ranges and is ideally suited to the medium-weight truck category. This engine, fitted with a turbocharger, is water-cooled and intercooled. Benefits of this particular engine include exceptional performance, low operating costs, low weight, low noise and low emissions.
The transmission, which is the six-speed synchromesh manual ZF 6 S 500 TO Ecolite, is a great match taking full advantage of the Cummins powerhouse while adding easy driveability and full driver control. The FAW 8.140’s drivetrain makes it ideal for weight sensitive, space-constrained applications.
The company aims to provide at least eight more mobile clinics to several NGOs all built on FAW 8.140 FL chassis and bodied by Mogul Medical themselves. Their plan is to have these mobile facilities in service before the year-end. These mobile facilities will be kitted out as centres for testing for cervical cancer among rural women; circumcision trucks; HIV and testing units; surgical and trauma mobile clinics; mobile dental units; and mobile ear, nose and throat (ENT) clinics.
Mogul Medical Solutions is also looking into the specifications for a possible mobile, eight-bed hospital to be deployed in major disaster circumstances. Discussions are under way with several ambulance service providers for the supply of Mogul Medical Solution’s innovative mono-cock, which cuts conversion time of ambulances by half and according to Moyo, costs R100 000 less than prevailing current market prices for ambulance conversions.
Menelisi Moyo is a passion-driven entrepreneur. “Providing medical supplies at an affordable price, efficiently and conveniently, is just good business. However, and even more importantly, is the personal reward of being part of bringing basic healthcare to so many people who would otherwise not be in a position to access such services under today’s circumstances.
“It is my dream to see many more of these types of healthcare services taken to the communities no matter where they are situated in the farthest reaches of our country.”
Well done Sir! We lift our hats to you.
