When for­mer banker Neala Per­sad, founder of Ac­cess Mo­bil­i­ty Med­care (AMMC), de­cid­ed to ex­pand her Toron­to-based com­pa­ny to Trinidad and To­ba­go, she wasn’t sim­ply launch­ing a busi­ness, she was in­tro­duc­ing a new mod­el of care.

Af­ter 24 years in cor­po­rate fi­nance, Per­sad tran­si­tioned from bank­ing to health­care en­tre­pre­neur­ship, build­ing a com­pa­ny now val­ued at over CAD$1.2 mil­lion. AMMC pro­vides mo­bil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty equip­ment to sup­port se­niors and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, a sec­tor she be­lieves is both prof­itable and so­cial­ly nec­es­sary.

Her de­ci­sion to reg­is­ter and launch the Caribbean arm of AMMC this month marks the start of a new phase. The com­pa­ny is al­ready field­ing re­quests from lo­cal hos­pi­tals, doc­tors and fam­i­lies for pa­tient trans­fer sys­tems, stair­lifts and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty ren­o­va­tions.  

Per­sad said the aim is to bring the same high stan­dards from Cana­da in­to a lo­cal con­text where sup­port for mo­bil­i­ty re­mains lim­it­ed.

Per­sad’s fi­nan­cial back­ground shaped her ap­proach to health­care in­no­va­tion. She built AMMC around struc­tured leas­ing and fi­nanc­ing op­tions, a sys­tem de­signed to make es­sen­tial mo­bil­i­ty equip­ment af­ford­able with­out heavy up­front costs.

The com­pa­ny’s flag­ship de­vice, the Up­lyft - pa­tient trans­fer sys­tem, costs about US$15,000 for in­sti­tu­tion­al clients. How­ev­er, AMMC of­fers flex­i­ble leas­ing plans rang­ing be­tween US$650 and US$695 per month, with dis­counts for non-prof­its such as the Ro­tary Club.

By ap­ply­ing cor­po­rate-style fi­nan­cial mod­els to a hu­man ser­vice in­dus­try, Per­sad po­si­tioned AMMC as both com­pas­sion­ate and com­mer­cial­ly vi­able.  

The com­pa­ny al­so pro­vides pay­ment plans of three to six months and part­ners with banks to of­fer ex­tend­ed fi­nanc­ing. Dis­cus­sions with Re­pub­lic Bank, First Cit­i­zen, and CIBC are al­ready un­der­way to make the prod­ucts more ac­ces­si­ble to the av­er­age house­hold.

Per­sad’s ap­proach al­so in­cludes en­cour­ag­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the pri­vate and fi­nan­cial sec­tors to fill pol­i­cy gaps in pub­lic sup­port for peo­ple with mo­bil­i­ty chal­lenges.

Ac­cess Mo­bil­i­ty Med­care be­gan as a fam­i­ly ini­tia­tive.  

Per­sad and her rel­a­tives spent years vol­un­teer­ing with com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes in Cana­da, as­sist­ing se­niors and peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties. That ex­pe­ri­ence laid the foun­da­tion for what would lat­er be­come her com­pa­ny.

In 2022, while ad­vis­ing the own­er of a small mo­bil­i­ty busi­ness on re­struc­tur­ing, she took over op­er­a­tions af­ter his pass­ing and ex­pand­ed the con­cept in­to a struc­tured en­ter­prise. The com­pa­ny now em­ploys mul­ti­lin­gual staff and col­lab­o­rates with oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists and per­son­al sup­port work­ers across On­tario.

The move to Trinidad came nat­u­ral­ly. Af­ter years of suc­cess in Cana­da, Per­sad want­ed to rein­vest her knowl­edge and cap­i­tal in her coun­try of birth. She launched AMMC lo­cal­ly this month, bring­ing in a team trained un­der Cana­di­an ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty stan­dards.

At the Trinidad launch, she not­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions at­tend­ed to ex­plore part­ner­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties. The event show­cased prod­ucts such as the Up­lyft de­vice and home mod­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tems that al­low se­niors and dis­abled per­sons to live in­de­pen­dent­ly.

Since the un­veil­ing, the founder said AMMC has re­ceived over 100 in­quiries and is­sued 15 quo­ta­tions for res­i­den­tial projects, in­clud­ing porch lifts, stair­lifts, and bath­room ren­o­va­tions. In­stal­la­tions typ­i­cal­ly take six to eight weeks to com­plete.

Per­sad plans to per­ma­nent­ly re­lo­cate to Trinidad next year while main­tain­ing dual op­er­a­tions be­tween Toron­to and Port of Spain.

Per­sad’s long-term strat­e­gy ex­tends be­yond sell­ing equip­ment. She aims to build a Caribbean ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty ecosys­tem that blends health­care, con­struc­tion and fi­nan­cial ser­vices.

She high­light­ed that through part­ner­ships with con­trac­tors and hard­ware sup­pli­ers, AMMC in­tends to in­tro­duce cer­ti­fied train­ing in home ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty stan­dards, sim­i­lar to pro­grammes run in Cana­da with Home De­pot and Home Hard­ware. Lo­cal con­trac­tors would re­ceive cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to retro­fit homes for safe­ty and mo­bil­i­ty while main­tain­ing de­sign qual­i­ty.

Per­sad de­scribes the ap­proach as cre­at­ing “mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional homes”  prop­er­ties that ac­com­mo­date ag­ing res­i­dents with­out re­duc­ing prop­er­ty val­ue. She notes that ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty up­grades, when pro­fes­sion­al­ly done, en­hance both com­fort and re­sale po­ten­tial.

To ex­pand ac­cess, Per­sad is ex­plor­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with NGOs and char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions to es­tab­lish a grant or sub­sidy mod­el sim­i­lar to Cana­da’s March of Dimes pro­gramme. The goal is to pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance for low-in­come in­di­vid­u­als who need ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty mod­i­fi­ca­tions, but lack the means to pay.

T&T ’s ag­ing pop­u­la­tion rep­re­sents both a so­cial chal­lenge and an eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty. Per­sad es­ti­mates that more than one-third of cit­i­zens over 60 will soon re­quire some form of mo­bil­i­ty sup­port. Yet, the coun­try has no struc­tured frame­work for ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty fi­nanc­ing or tax in­cen­tives for home mod­i­fi­ca­tions.

She be­lieves the in­tro­duc­tion of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty al­lowances or tax de­duc­tions for se­niors could stim­u­late in­vest­ment in safer hous­ing while re­duc­ing health­care costs from pre­ventable in­juries. Dis­cus­sions are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue with the Min­istry of Health and oth­er stake­hold­ers on de­vel­op­ing a lo­cal ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty pol­i­cy frame­work.

In the ab­sence of Gov­ern­ment pro­grammes, AMMC plans to fill the gap by cre­at­ing prac­ti­cal, scal­able so­lu­tions for fam­i­lies. This in­cludes co­or­di­nat­ing with banks on ac­ces­si­ble fi­nanc­ing, of­fer­ing equip­ment rentals and pro­vid­ing main­te­nance pack­ages that en­sure safe­ty over time.

While AMMC’s mod­el is com­mer­cial­ly ground­ed, its mo­ti­va­tion is deeply hu­man­i­tar­i­an. Dur­ing her out­reach in Trinidad, Per­sad en­coun­tered a dou­ble am­putee who con­tin­ued work­ing de­spite hav­ing no wheel­chair. That ex­pe­ri­ence, she said, un­der­scored how many cit­i­zens re­main un­der­served.

Her com­pa­ny now pri­or­i­tizes out­reach to pub­lic hos­pi­tals, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tres and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions to iden­ti­fy those most in need. AMMC’s first batch of de­vices will be part­ly do­nat­ed or pro­vid­ed at re­duced cost to crit­i­cal cas­es.

Per­sad views ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty not as a form of wel­fare, but as an in­vest­ment in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and dig­ni­ty. A func­tion­al mo­bil­i­ty sys­tem, she ar­gues, keeps care­givers em­ployed, re­duces hos­pi­tal strain and helps fam­i­lies main­tain in­de­pen­dence at home.

AMMC will soon launch a se­ries of “Lunch and Learn” work­shops to ed­u­cate home­own­ers, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and cor­po­rate lead­ers about ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty in­no­va­tions. Col­lab­o­ra­tions with doc­tors Chelsea Gar­cia and Jacque­line Sab­ga, as well as in­sti­tu­tions like the Princess Eliz­a­beth Cen­tre are al­ready in place.

The com­pa­ny is al­so hir­ing lo­cal staff, in­clud­ing tech­ni­cal in­stallers and ad­min­is­tra­tive per­son­nel, to en­sure T&T op­er­a­tions are ful­ly lo­calised.

Per­sad’s daugh­ter, who will grad­u­ate as a psy­chother­a­pist next year, is ex­pect­ed to join the busi­ness as it ex­pands re­gion­al­ly. To­geth­er, they plan to ex­plore new mar­kets in Bar­ba­dos and St. Lu­cia over the next two years.

A Busi­ness with Pur­pose

Per­sad’s re­turn to Trinidad marks a full-cir­cle mo­ment  from banker to en­tre­pre­neur, from prof­it to pur­pose. Her com­pa­ny stands as an ex­am­ple of how di­as­po­ra in­vest­ment can merge so­cial val­ue with fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

For her, suc­cess will not be mea­sured by mar­ket share alone, but by the num­ber of lives re­stored to in­de­pen­dence.

She sees the Caribbean as fer­tile ground for ac­ces­si­ble de­sign and be­lieves that once the fi­nan­cial mod­els catch up, the re­gion can lead in in­clu­sive in­fra­struc­ture.

Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian ob­tained tes­ti­monies from sev­er­al peo­ple. Jen­nifer Seep­er­sad said, “My hus­band was di­ag­nosed with Parkin­son’s, and at times he needs help get­ting on and off the bed. I’ve had heart surgery my­self, and I’ve had to lift him. Af­ter my surgery, I once fell, and it took five peo­ple us­ing a tow­el just to help me stand. Up­lyft is go­ing to re­place sit­u­a­tions like that.”

Dr. Chelsea Gar­cia, Liv Health, said, “We can­not burn out our won­der­ful care­giv­er work­force. We must work with them, ed­u­cate them, and pro­vide the tools they need to do a good job, but al­so to pro­tect them. Up­lyft is an es­sen­tial tool that will con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to that pro­tec­tion.”