5 October 2006

Telemedicine



The Tamil Nadu hospital system may not have helicopters or in fact even that many ambulances but at least efforts are being made by various NGOs and Hospital Trusts to ensure communities distant from metropolitian areas have more access to speciality care.

In this respect, the Kanchi Kamakoti Childs Trust Hospital is attempting to 'break the time-barrier, the cost-barrier and the distance-barrier' in paediatric healthcare with the recent launch of a telemedicine facility. Their new resource is intended to make speciality care more accessible to rural patients.

Apart from allowing videoconference consultation between village primary healthcare centres and specialists in the City, their programme will also aid the training of personnel in remote areas. It is also hoped that it will be helpful in the case of sick babies unable to tolerate the strain of travelling to Chennai for specialist care.

The scheme will allow long-distance post-operative check-ups for outstation patients. The programme envisages links in Tiruvannamalai, Tirupati, Chittur, Arakonam, Chengalpet and Kumbakonam within the upcoming 3-6 months.

A second phase of this enterprise will involve a mobile centre equipped to provide telemedicine facilities across the State.

2 comments:

Divyakka said...

Sounds like it will be a great help to many, many people!

Meenakshi Ammal said...

Good medical things happening in this area. Will have more news about the medical situation at Tiruvannamalai later this week.