[BetterNepal] ‘Online’ clinic saving lives in Kalikot

[sohan]

Rampura Damai of Sipkhana VDC-1 in Kalikot district has every reason to smile, now that she is better after some gruelling years of health complications since the birth of her first child at home.

Following heavy bleeding recently, Damai was admitted to a telemedicine facility that has been set up in the village.

The woman, who had never seen a hospital during her previous deliveries and who was battling death, got a new lease of life after assistant health worker Hamsharaj Neupane treated her “online” with advice from doctors in Kathmandu through the Internet.

Dr Smriti Upadhyay, Dr Asim Bhattarai and Dr Nabin Khanal of the Teaching Hospital in the Capital helped Neupane in Damai’s treatment via the Internet. “The doctors ultimately saved my wife,” said Khaire, Damai’s husband.

Sangita Simkhada, another local woman, gave birth to a baby in a similar fashion through the “online” treatment.

Damai and Simkhada are, however, not the only ones to have benefited from the telemedicine facility.

Lila Simkhada, the chairperson of Rural Welfare Council, an NGO that launched the service in the VDC, said the facility that provides free

treatment has saved the lives of 19 women suffering from serious ailments so far.

Neupane said a total of 1,432 people (851 women and 581 men) have availed of the services since the facility’s launch last year. He said doctors also write prescriptions for the patients online.

Patients from neighbouring VDCs—21 from Bajura, nine from Achham and three from Mugu—have also benefited from the service, he said.

Advocate Pramod Neupane said the service has turned out to be a boon for the poor people in rural areas of the district who are still deprived of treatment and medicine

(source: ekantipur)

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Posted By sohan to BetterNepal at 1/12/2012 10:18:00 PM