Access to
health care is a major problem in many emerging and developing countries
suffering from a lack of trained medical personnel. But mobile phones could
help bring medical help closer.
Statistically
speaking, there is one doctor for every 10,000 people in Kenya - a country of
38 million. The situation is particularly bad in the rural, less inhabited
areas throughout Africa, where health care is even more scarce. Many regions in
Asia and South America are facing similar problems.
At the same
time, mobile phone networks often have good coverage across these regions, a
fact at the core of a recent study presented by the industry at the Mobile
World Congress in Barcelona earlier this month.
The study's
authors said doctors and relief organizations could make use of these networks
to save millions of people's lives every year.
First aid
on the phone
Preventative
health care and emergency services have a particularly high potential for
development by making use of mobile services, experts have said. Kenya is at
the forefront of this movement: smart phones users in the country already have
access to services that allow them to run basic health checks, analyze urine
samples and check their blood sugar.
There are
also services for pregnant women that answer most of their questions both
before and after giving birth. Until now, however, the use of smart phones has
largely been limited to urban centers such as Nairobi or Mombasa, as it is only
there that the mobile network offers the required capacities. That's according
to Fred Majiwa, spokesperson of the nationwide St. John ambulance service, who
called upon mobile operators to enable their networks for smart phone data use
across the entire country.
That, in turn,
would enable many Kenyans to expand their knowledge about what to do in an
emergency situation - significantly supporting the work of ambulance services.
"The
first five minutes are extremely important," Majiwa said. "If people
have access to the information about what needs to be done during the first
minutes after an accident, for anyone who is sick or injured this may well be
the difference that decides between life and death."
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| Social media platforms can be used for emergency calls |
Emergency
services take advantage of the fact that almost every Kenyan with a mobile
phone has Internet access for their everyday work. But while people can call
and get medical help in an emergency, this method of contact is still the
exception, said Majiwa.
"What
has come out is again the use of social media platforms - that is most
prominently Facebook and also Twitter - because it's able to integrate with a
normal phone's message system. So most people use such a social media to give
us an alert whenever there's a kind of emergency that we can respond to."
In
emergencies from remote agencies, they send an ambulance as soon as possible
after the call for help, but that often takes hours due to the long distances.
That's why
it's essential to have professional medical staff on-site as telephone
assistance has its limits in emergencies, said Andreas Papp, the head of the
Doctors Without Borders' Operational Support Unit.
"The
wrong dosage of a drug can also have negative effects and you can't explain how
to perform an operation to someone who has no medical training," Papp
said. "And the 'do no harm' principle in humanitarian work also applies
here."
If the
assistance that can be given via telephone or a smart phone app has not been
carefully thought out, it could do more damage than good. In addition, the
severe shortage of medical staff has to be dealt with, Papp added.
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| Ambulences are sent as quickly as possible, but that can sometimes still mean a long wait |
When calling
for help
But until
there is comprehensive health care in remote regions of Africa and Asia, mobile
phones can play an important role. What is more significant is making the
information as easy and accessible to understand as possible. DW Akademie's
Bernd Rössle worked with NGO in Zimbabwe that developed a
"Content-on-demand" service for the "Freedom Fone" project
in Zimbabwe. It presented important information in short videos ranging from 60
to 90 seconds, so that they could be understood even when the connection was
bad. That plays a very important role in health.
"Especially
with epidemics, it's important that people get current information,"
Rössle said. "They can get information, for example, on what cholera is,
how they can avoid getting infected and what they can do when the become
infected. Those are questions, which are vital in Africa."
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