Dear Members , I am a community health specialist with post graduate degree in epidemiology. Currently, I am working in All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health,, Ministry of Health & family welfare ,Government of India, in Calcutta.
I am in the advocacy panel of a non profit, non governmental organisation , Center for Total Development with its headquarters at Post Office and Village, Bahirkhand, District Hooghly , West Bengal State. The NGO has its operation fiels in Tarakeswar Block in Hooghly district but soon will expand its activities in tribal areas of Bankura and Puruliya District in West Bengal State. These areas are not only inhabitated by the poor tribal population, but also difficult to reach because of poor infrastructure and physical constraints and geographical terrain. We don't have any baseline information about the health and living conditions of the people living in these areas. We propose to conceptualise a community health project in these areas with the following courses of action in mind. 1. Develop a e-surveillance system to collect data about the prevailing and emerging diseases to create a data base 2.Develop a tele health project in line of telemedicine project to receive information about any critical conditions affecting people and to give immediate relief measures through the tele health project with the help from the local health workers residing in these villages/ or to a nearby place.Our tele health project will not be a very sophisticated one, but will cater to the need at basic level. 3 Develop a SMS based health alert and education system to increase the utilisation of services . 4.To institute a low cost IVR system like Freedom Fone in our area so that community members can access health advisory messages.This we are presently planning for our HQ center at Tarakeswar but will expand to other areas soon. Our area in Bankura district is majorly disadvantaged with electrical power supply and analogue telephone services available at certain points. Mobile telephony services are either absent or scarcely available( The signal strength very poor). We would like to use the modern but low cost technologies e.g. internet and telephony to use in our project. We would like to partner with a institution who can provide us the required technoloas we do not have any organisation in India who can help us, to our knowledge. But as ware non-profit NGO, are resources are minimal and so, is our paying capacity. But as we are not having sufficient knowledge and expertise to set up a IVR system like Freedom Fone etc( we are not confident in running system based on Linux, will any member of the , preferably from Calcutta , provide us the necessary technical and other support? Thanking you, Dr.Tusharkanti Dey. -- Mailing list guidelines and other related articles: http://lug-iitd.org/Footer
