TIME TO ADOPT TELEMEDICINE
Problems facing rural hospitals in Tanzania are well documented. The solution partly lies in adopting telemedicine, which is the use of telecommunication and information technologies to provide clinical healthcare from afar.
Technology is evolving rapidly, changing the way things are done. It will be recalled that a digital village was unveiled in Ngorongoro District, Arusha Region, through the partnership of Tanesco and South Korean tech giant Samsung in 2018.
Small as it may be, the digital village is a commendable step and we hope that players in the health sector will adopt the new technology. Other regional authorities should take a leaf from the Ngororongo project book and mobilise resources to establish similar centres.
Telemedicine will certainly save millions of lives – especially in rural areas where healthcare is mostly wanting. However, the government should ensure that the requisite communications infrastructure is set up countrywide because efficiency of doctors entirely depends on functional internet connections.
