Telemedicine - New era in healthcare in rural Punjab

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Telemedicine New era in healthcare in rural PunjabRavi Dhaliwal

 

 

 

The electronic health point at Doda village in Muktsar district. Tribune photo: Pawan Sharma

Muktsar, October 25In

an agrarian state like Punjab, where 75 per cent of the population

lives in villages and 75 per cent of the doctors are based in urban

areas, most villagers do not have access to even basic healthcare

facilities. To

these statistics, add the fact that the poor infrastructure of

government rural health centres makes it almost impossible to retain

doctors in villages, who when posted there feel they are

"professionally isolated." The

Naandi Foundation, one of India's largest social sector organisations

working to alleviate poverty in rural areas, has floated the concept of

telemedicine in rural Punjab in collaboration with the state

government. And the moving spirit behind the show is Finance Minister

Manpreet Singh Badal, who also revolutionised the lives of ruralites in

this area by brining in the highly successful Reverse Osmosis (RO)

plants in an attempt to provide clean drinking water. When

the Punjab Governor, SF Rodrigues, formally inaugurates the Electronic

Health Point (EHP), set up by the Naandi Foundation, on October 28 at

Malhan village in this district, Punjab will be ushering in a new era

in the area of healthcare. As

a pilot project, EHPs have been opened in three villages — Doda,

Kotbhai and Malhan — of Muktsar distict. They have been successfully

running for the past two months and now the Punjab government and the

Naandi foundation have planned to set up such EHP centres in other

villages in the cancer-stricken Malwa belt of south-west Punjab, giving

much-needed respite to poor villagers. Going

by the response the pilot projects have received in these villages, any

lingering doubts that sceptics might have had about their successful

running should be dismissed. Says

AS Sukhija, chief administrator of the Adesh Group of Hospitals,

Muktsar, "All three EHPs opened so far have tasted success in reaching

out to rural patients. EHPs are a product of superior technology

including proliferation of fibre optic cables, expanding bandwidth,

fall in computer prices and the licensing of private internet users

that has proved to be a boon for the ruralites." The

EHP at Doda village comprises personal computers with personalised

medical software connected to a few medical diagnostic instruments such

as ECG, X-ray machine and an X-ray scanner for scanning X-ray photos.

Through the computers, digitised versions of a patient's medical images

and diagnostic details such blood test samples and X-rays are

dispatched to specialist doctors through a satellite-based

communication link. The

inputs are then received at the specialist centres at Bathinda where

experienced doctors examine the reports, interact with patients through

local doctors and then suggest appropriate treatment through

video-conferencing. Rakinder

Singh, a medical specialist at Muktsar, said, "Now it has become easier

to set up telecommunication infrastructure in the countryside to

increase the reach of the limited number of urban specialists rather

than to place medical specialists in places which were earlier devoid

of such experts. It has been universally acknowledged that India has

made massive leaps in Information Technology. We now no longer follow

or ride piggy back. We leapfrog." Said

Manpreet, "I am really excited because of the uniqueness of the

project. Actually, my inspiration came from such centres already

working with a fair measure of success in Brazil and Philippines where

millions of rural people now have access to state-of-the- art medicinal

systems."URL - http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20091026/main7.htm

 

--------- --------- --------- ------------ --------- ------Your comments and feedbacks always welcome .. Rahul, at Cybugle as well as at bruntno1 ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ----

 

 

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