Telemedicine In Pakistan: A Story From American Press
There are many other telemedicine projects and companies in Pakistan. Few of them get coverage outside Pakistan. I found this story, which appeared at MarketWatch and other sites, to be interesting, though it reads a bit like marketing for IBM and Wateen. In an upcoming post I will share related work being carried out by Pakistani researchers.
Part of the funding came from the U.S. Department of State under the U.S. Government’s Digital Freedom Initiative, which “seeks to encourage the spread of technology to the developing world.”
A 5-year-old boy in Pakistan no longer has to suffer without treatment of an irritating skin rash thanks to care from a doctor in a city 110 miles from his rural village.
The high-tech telemedicine system that made the treatment possible was implemented with the leadership of a company on the other side of the world: Armonk-based IBM Corp.
IBM was tapped by the State Department to lead a public-private partnership that includes Wateen Telecom, Motorola Inc., Medweb Inc., the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Defense Department Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center and the Pakistani government.
The telemedicine system links the “hub” of Holy Family Hospital in the city of Rawalpindi, Punjab province, with the “spoke” of District Headquarters Hospital in Attock, which has limited resources to treat thousands of surrounding villagers.
Doctors in Rawalpindi, armed with personal computers and videoconferencing equipment, “see” patients remotely and confer with their counterparts at the district hospital.
Medical records and information, including digital photos of skin lesions, for example, are shared via a wireless network provided by Motorola and Wateen Telecom and navigated with Medweb software.
Dr. Sadia Rafiq, the IBM medical consultant for the Pakistan Telemedicine Project, said just 16 primary-care doctors work in Attock while there is a need for 64.
There are no radiologists, pathologists, dermatologists or many other specialists. If a villager needs additional care, he or she often cannot afford the trip to the larger hospital in Rawalpindi.
As a result, Rafiq said, ailments that aren’t emergencies are ignored. Since the telemedicine project became active this summer, patients have come in with complaints that had been ignored, including a goiter that was untreated for 30 years.
“The simple diseases that are not treated before can now be treated,” she said.
Rafiq said that the marginally trained doctors at the district hospital weren’t skilled enough to diagnose many problems and that patients sometimes hesitated to come in for treatment at all.
“You could see the misery on their faces,” she said.
While the upper-middle class can afford to visit a private clinic, most people can’t afford to travel to Rawalpindi and pay up to 1,000 rupees for an ultrasound, for example, as many earn about 4,000 a month.
Pakistan has almost 179 million people. But more than 75 percent live in remote villages with access to fewer than 15 percent of all hospital beds in the country.
“We basically have very poor people,” she said. “They don’t have money for their bread and butter. They are living in remote areas.”
The telemedicine system gives them access to care without traveling and incurring big costs.
“They can stay with their families, in their own environment,” she said. “They don’t have to spend a lot of money, they don’t have to wait in a queue.”
In Pakistan, where IBM employs about 350 people, the company created a team of three people to implement the telemedicine solution with partners.
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Salam
I have been reading your blog on and off & i find your posts to be very informative.If you remember, i was the one who notified you about telenor teledoctor service at,
http://telecompk.net/2008/04/16/telenor-teledoctor-consumers-be-aware/
To cut short i am a doctor whose house job is almost near to completion.I actually want to explore new arenas such as telemedicine,nanotechnology etc etc but i was really led down as there are no opportunities for such fields in Pakistan.But now this article has really pumped adrenaline in me and now it is you who can guide me to it.
I am also a hardcore geek with a vast variety of hardware and software knowledge.As a result i want such a field which can blend both medicine and technology.
Hoping for your respone at
(mutanthuman)at(gmail)dot(com)
Thanks.
Teledoctor is a bad bad initiative in my opinion. Its great from the 30,000 feet view, and @Ahsan, no offense, but its very easy for you and others like you to give advise to illiterates when in fact it may be determental to their health.
In the US there are stringent checks on doctors, and not one doctor dare give any medical advise over the phone for fear of being wrong. Yes, the suing sometimes goes overboard and this impacts their professional insurance and so on.
But in Pakistan where the average doctor is no better than a half qualified nurse in a developed nation (let the flaming begin!), I fear how illiterates in this country will be taken on a ride. It reminds me of the saying, best way to eliminate poverty is to kill the poor. Ah well, we’re about to make Pakistan the organ selling capital of the world soon, so this sounds like a walk in the park.
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Quli
Perhaps you are right. How about suggestions on what can be done keeping in mind the current situation of a country like Pakistan? Are you being fare in comparing the US and Pakistan at all? A mother who can possible call a tele-doctor from her phone and at least get to know if the suatuation may be too serious to just be cured over the phone, is being well served according to me.
Do you mean to say that the effort should be severed rather than improved? your statement has no advice, considering the kind of insight you seem to have on the topic. I’m just trying to find out, with anyone’s help if there is a better way? Is it even possible?
Thank you!
@Ravi - All medical practices must be brought under a LAW. Since our lawmakers are generally too busy trying to make more money, I’m not optimistic here. But nonetheless, anything that does not have a law backing it up can and will be misused. And yes, we are a nation of sticks and carrots rarely work.
Getting medical advise should not be about gambling on ones life, and that is my fear for such a service. Will a bad or an incompetent doctor go scott free if they are the direct cause of harm or death to a patient? Probably so, as there is no relevant law on the advise being offered even if it causes death and it will only add to the societies woes of feeling unsafe.
Like whats been said over and over again, we’re a country where even the chief justice is looking for justice!
Ahsan - glad that this article inspired you. There’s no doubt in my mind that technology will make medical service much better. However as Quli said the current solutions are far from satisfactory. On the flip side, telemedicine can be a life saver for those who have no other alternative. We will see more and more innovation in this area.