Krikdex
Krikdex
The shared phone directory for South African hospitals. Search your hospital's extensions, direct lines, bleepers and email addresses, and tap once to call. When you find a number that's wrong, fix it yourself.
The hospital switchboard number you need is on a laminated sheet three wards away. Fona puts it in your pocket.
Fona fills the gap left when the directory app many South African hospitals relied on stopped serving them, and keeps the thing that made it work. Any verified colleague can add or correct a number, so the list stays current without anyone waiting on an IT department.
Search by ward, department, role or person, in any word order. Star the numbers you use every shift and they follow your account to a new phone. Once a directory has loaded it works without signal, so a basement or a lift lobby doesn't leave you stranded.
A workplace phone directory, holding no patient information
Type a ward, a department, a role or a person. Words match in any order, so you don't have to remember what the entry was called.
Extensions dial as full numbers where the hospital allows direct dialling, and fall back to the switchboard where it doesn't.
Star the numbers you use on every shift. Favourites are saved to your account, so they're waiting on your next phone.
Find a wrong extension, correct it on the spot. Every add, edit and deletion records who made it, and deletions can be undone.
Fona keeps a copy of every directory you've opened on the phone and searches that copy. Basements and lift lobbies included.
Whoever creates a directory becomes its first admin, setting the dialling prefix and switchboard, and blocking anyone who abuses it.
Where a hospital allows direct dialling into its extensions, its admin sets a dialling prefix once, 021404 at Groote Schuur, say. Every extension in that directory then dials as a complete number from your phone, without you doing the arithmetic in a corridor.
Where extensions aren't direct-dial, Fona rings the switchboard instead and shows you the extension to ask for. Bleepers work the same way: the entry stores the pager number, Fona dials the switchboard, and you page through it.
Switch between the hospitals you work across without signing out, or start a directory for one that isn't listed yet. You become its first admin, set the dialling prefix and switchboard, and your colleagues take it from there.
Fona is a phone directory, and it holds what a phone directory holds: workplace contact details for wards, departments and roles. There is no patient record in the app and nowhere to create one. It carries no advertising and no crash reporting, nothing follows you into other apps or websites, and it does not collect your location or your phone's contact list. When you tap a number, Fona hands it to your phone's own dialler, and the call is between you and your network operator.
What it does store is your account, your starred contacts, and the directory content itself. Because a directory is shared, anything you add to it is visible to every signed-in user of that hospital. It also counts how many people use it and which screens they open, through Google Analytics and RevenueCat, but never what you search for, which contact you open or which number you dial.
Fona is not an emergency service and cannot connect you to one. Numbers are contributed and corrected by users, so they can be wrong or out of date. Confirm any critical number before relying on it, and follow the emergency and cardiac arrest procedures your hospital publishes.
Fona is built for people who work in or with South African hospitals: doctors, nurses, allied health staff, pharmacists, switchboard and administrative staff. You confirm that this describes you when you create an account. We do not currently ask for an HPCSA number or a work email address, so please only use Fona in the course of your work, and only add contact details that belong in a workplace directory.
Yes. Any verified user can create a hospital directory and becomes its first admin. From there you can set the dialling prefix and switchboard number and start adding contacts. Get in touch if you would rather we set it up with you.
Any verified, non-blocked user of that hospital's directory, which is the same open model those hospitals were already used to. A directory only stays useful if the person who discovers a wrong number can fix it on the spot rather than reporting it to someone. Every add, edit and deletion records who made it, and the contact sheet shows who added an entry.
If an entry should not be there at all, delete it. Deletions are reversible, and a hospital admin can restore anything removed in error. If you are seeing repeated bad edits, use Report a directory problem in Settings and we will look at blocking the account responsible.
Only verified users can edit the directory. Signing in with Google or Apple verifies your address automatically; with an email address and password we send you a six-digit code to confirm you can receive mail at it. It is the one check standing between a shared, openly editable directory and anyone at all.
Yes. Delete the entry yourself in the app, ask an admin of that directory, or email us at krikdex@gmail.com and we will remove it. Fona's directories are meant to carry work contact details for roles and departments, not personal contact details for individuals.
Yes. Fona is free, has no ads, and has no subscription. If we ever introduce a paid feature we will give at least 30 days' notice in the app or by email first.
No. There is no advertising and no crash reporting in the app, and nothing follows you into other apps or websites. We do count how many people use Fona and which screens they open, through Google Analytics and RevenueCat, but never what you search for, which contact you open or which number you dial; the privacy policy sets out exactly what is counted. We do not collect your location, your phone's contacts, or a record of who you call. Placing a call hands the number to your phone's own dialler, and the call itself is between you and your network operator.
Settings, then Delete my account. This permanently removes your account, your profile and your favourites. Contacts you added stay in their directories for your colleagues, because a directory that lost entries every time someone left would be worse than useless. They are no longer linked to a name or an email address once your account is gone.
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