Telemedicine to sanitary workers' rescue

Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that affects humans and animals alike and in rare cases death may occur.

A satellite, a doctor and some help from the government and corporations can help treat the thousands of sanitary workers who die from the disease, said Devi Prasad Shetty, MD of Narayana Hrudayalaya.

He was speaking at the inauguration of an international conference on telemedicine here on Thursday.

The risk of contracting leptospirosis can be greatly reduced by not swimming or wading in water contaminated with animal urine. Unfortunately, the sanitary workers in the country do a lot worse. As to protective clothing or footwear they need, forget it.

The result, "In the process of keeping Bangalore's sewers clean, they can aspire to an average life expectancy of 45 years," Dr Shetty said.

It is scenarios like this that are amenable to change for the better through the use of telemedicine, he said. A satellite link makes a specialist in a field of medicine instantly available to the remotest of places for diagnosis.

And the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has connected 22 top notch hospitals across the country to 78 hospitals in remote areas via its telemedicine network using a transponder on one of its INSAT series satellite, said G Madhavan Nair, ISRO's chairman. More will be added at both ends.

Some 700 participants, from SAARC, the US and Europe, at the three-day conference will deliberate on ways of making telemedicine accessible to the largest possible number of people cost effectively.

Nair said that the use of open source software, combined with scale, has helped bring down the cost of delivering telemedicine to 20 per cent of what it cost three years ago. So, a sanitary worker in a city or one in a remote district, will perhaps one day get healthcare via. satellite.

Narayana Hrudayalaya plans to engage 200 colleges in the next two years, to offer diplomas in community cardiology, community nephrology and community diabetology, to doctors. Such doctors, will be better equipped to handle the "last mile" of the satellite-based healthcare delivery.