The Hindu : Front Page : Afghans get telemedicine lessons

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 26, 2005

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Afghans get telemedicine lessons

Sandhya Soman

WHAT'S UP DOC?: V. Murali of Sankara Nethralaya's teleophthalmology project interacts with a team of doctors from Afghanistan on Thursday. — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: The guns have stopped. But the holes are still there. Four doctors and a technician from Afghanistan are in Chennai learning to use telemedicine to mend the hearts and bodies of fellow Afghans.

"We have been fighting for the past 30 years. The war has stopped now but we don't have any facilities to reach out to those in rural areas or to get in touch with specialists in other countries," lamented paediatrician Momand Ajab Gul.

At Sankara Nethralaya's conference hall, Dr. Gul and colleagues Amirmohammas, Sultani Ghulam Yahya and Sultany Nilowfar listened to what technical manager of teleophthalmology project, V. Murali, had to say on Thursday morning.

"We have completed 410 camps in the last one-and-a-half years," said Mr. Murali.

Dr. Nilowfar, a gynaecologist with the Indira Gandhi Children Hospital in Kabul, was surprised to note that one doctor sees 50 patients from the outskirts a day sitting at the conference hall.

"ISRO gave us everything free in the beginning and also provided training," recalled Mr. Murali. It also facilitated the seven-day training for the Afghans. The programme is funded by the United Nations office for Outer Space Affairs."We have been linking remote villages to medical centres in the city via satellites in India," said a senior ISRO official.

It is offered the facility — transfer of diagnostic info via satellite and later teleconferencing for treatment — ever since reconstruction of Afghanistan started. "We are hoping to set up a telemedicine centre at Kabul," added the official.

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