[Telecentres] Telemedicine activities of SDNP Bangladesh

[Hakikur Rahman]

Telemedicine activities of SDNP Bangladesh

Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) of Bangladesh funded by  United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), started its journey of Telemedicine back in January, 2003. In its 1^st phase, a 15 months long “e-Health & Learning” (e-HL) project was deployed by SDNP, which was partially funded by the European Commission under the Asia IT&C programme. The project was coordinated by the Centre for Research of Applications of Telematics to Organization and Society (CRATOS) of Catholic University in Italy. University of Birmingham in UK and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in Bangladesh worked as partners. During that phase several workshops and seminars were held locally and internationally. Eight seminars were also delivered to Physicians in Dhaka and Mymensing in Bangladesh.

The project built two network segments using point-to-point radio link with a bi-directional bandwidth of 2 Mbps. The first setup of the segment was in Dhaka and it connected the SDNP node at BIDS with the Comfort Nursing Home, covering an air distance of about 8 km. The second one was established from SDNP node in Mymensingh (120 km away from Dhaka) to a Community Based Medical College and Hospital (CBMCH), about 6 km away from Mymensingh node, creating a length of 134 km (including existing 120 km of SDNP backbone) of radio link with 4 hops in between.

As a follow up of the telemedicine initiative in Bangladesh, SDNP Bangladesh has started telemedicine sessions from early August 2005. The project has arranged several telemedicine sessions since August 2005 using its own infrastructure and manpower. These sessions included real patients at the remote and with one physician, and one medical expert was present at the head office to provide suggestions acting as third opinion. These sessions will continue (every Friday) for each of the regions of SDNP Bangladesh (Cox's Bazar, Dinajpur, Mymensingh and Satkhira) throughout the rest of 2005. The activities took place up to 6^th September 2005 are listed below.

Activities in Cox’s Bazar (Regional Node of Chitagong region):

In presence of handful number of patients and a local physician, first ever telemedicine program was held at Cox’s Bazar region on the 5^th of August. One specialist doctor at Dhaka head office of SDNP delivered medical consultation to those patients in Cox’s Bazar Regional Node office of SDNP. A real time video conferencing was used in this session.

Second session of telemedicine session in Cox’s Bazar region was held on 26^th of August. As a reminiscent of first session the second session has held between the regional node and Head Office in BIDS. Specialized doctor of Dhaka gave away his specialist opinion to the poor fishermen and patients from that region including Moheshkhali after having an online discursion with them.

Next session for this regional node is scheduled on 23^rd September 2005. According to the local media, this was a remarkable event for poor and neglected people of that region.

Activities in Satkhira (Regional Node of Khulna region):

Like Coxe’s Bazar region, a telemedicine session also held in Satkhira regional node on 19^th August 2005, in presence of a local physician in regional node and one specialist physician from Dhaka at Dhaka head office. Unlike Cox’s bazaar, the conference was interrupted in the halfway due to Power Failure at Satkhira end and it is rescheduled on 9^th September 2005. in that short session of 19^th August, 4 patients got the consultation.
And likewise Cox’s Bazaar the response from people was remarkable.

Activities in Dinajpur (Regional node of Rajshahi region):

As a program of nationwide telemedicine service, Dinajpur region had it’s first ever telemedicine session on 2^nd September 2005. The session went for two hours. A Specialist physician in Dhaka head office of SDNP gave free medical consultation to four patients in Dinajpur Regional node of SDNP after having a video conferencing with physician. Two physicians from Dinajpur Medical College Hospital have assist to carry out the program in the regional node.

All the above events were attended by local press club's journalists and were highly appreciated by the local media.

Hakikur Rahman
Project Coordinator
SDNP Bangladesh.