Around 400 patients suffering from different diseases have been provided treatment in Skardu under Comsats tele-health programme by August this year. This initiative has greatly helped patients who otherwise had to go down ountry for the consultation with medical specialists.
The Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (Comsats) and Baltistan Health and Education Foundation (BHEF) had launched the programme to provide cost-effective and quality diagnostic health-care services to the people of Baltistan.
The patients suffering from heart, intestinal gastric, skin and other ailments were treated by medical specialists sitting at Comsats-tele-health resource centre at Islamabad, examining patients at Skardu's Abdullah Hospital via Internet.
According to Comsats here on Wednesday, the patients with skin problems have out-numbered all others, proving that the Northern Areas are quite vulnerable to skin diseases primarily due to high-altitude ultraviolet radiation and problems of hygiene and malnutrition.
At present, the tele-health project serves the hospital and a clinic run by BHEF and Jabir-Bin-Hayyan-Trust (JBHT) with the technical support from Comsats and financial support from the IDRC (the public corporation of the government of Canada).
An IDRC representative from Canada visited the project sites in August and praised the project team for the successful implementation of the project in the face of difficult conditions.
In the near future, besides continuation of tele-health consultation and connecting it to more specialists, be they in Lahore, Karachi or the US, the programme will focus on awareness raising among other medical doctors and the public at large in the area about the benefits of telemedicine.
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