Telemedicine uses information technology to help medical professionals diagnose and treat patients who are located at geographically distant locations, by transmitting live or stored data, voice and video.

Universal Service Fund (USF) Co. initiated a pilot telemedicine network in October 2011 in collaboration with federal ministry of health. The project was carried out at 15 locations across the country; three hubs tertiary care hospitals were connected.

Hub of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), Karachi, was connected with four remote sites — DHQ hospitals at Badin, Thatta, Dadu and Naushahro Feroze.

The equipment provided under the project was handed over to each of the hospital, included in the project, for their operational control.

According to the project design, the responsibility of USF was to deliver the equipment at sites and keep those sites operationally active for one year.

But after that year, the JPMC didn’t work for telemedicine. Seven years have passed but the JPMC couldn’t activate these centres. We would have taken advantage of this technology. Patients of Naushahro Feroze, Dadu, Badin and Thatta could not benefit from this advanced treatment technology. All the above mentioned centres of Sindh are deprived of this facility.

I personally approached the health secretary, Sindh, about this matter but unfortunately no positive response from him has yet been received.

Dr Abdul Qadeer Memon

Naushahro Feroze

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2018