Chandigarh based-Doctor Z India Healthcare (Pvt) Ltd, the only registered medical tourism company in North India, is planning to introduce telemedicine project in Kenya followed by Canada and UK. The company has entrusted Mohali-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a scientific society under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, to provide technology to launch the project. The company claims it would be the first player to launch such a project in Kenya.
Speaking to Business Standard, Doctor Z India Managing Director Zora Singh said, “We are planning to launch telemedicine project in Kenya in association with C-DAC Mohali as a technology partner. We have selected C-DAC because they have past experience in this field. Besides, we are also planning to run OPD’s camp in Kenya, Ethiopia and East of Africa.”
It is worth mentioning, the telemedicine department of C-DAC’s first major project was ‘Telemedicine and its implementation’, started in the year 1999 and was successfully accomplished in 2003. It was sponsored by the Department of Information Technology (DIT). It has been implemented successfully at six sites connected over ISDN lines for expert consultation using the Telemedicine integrated desktop software ‘Sanjeevani’. The second major project was ‘Telemedicine in Himachal Pradesh’, started in 2005 and Primary Health care centres in rural and remote areas have been connected over ISDN lines using Telemedicine Application ‘Sanjeevani’. Apart from this, it has also implemented another project from Department of Information Technology (DIT) with the collaboration with Punjab Health Systems Corporation under the project named ‘Punjab Telemedicine’ in 2006. Here also, sites have been connected and further processing for better facilities and wider coverage is going on.
Further, in order to promote medical tourism in the country, it is in the process of tying up with tour and travel operators after tying up with more than three dozens of hospitals and super specialty hospitals across India. According to the company, it would enable its clients to choose the destination of his choice for which he plans to visit as there are several exotic locations in the country besides availing medical treatments.
Further, the company has also appointed its coordinators in UK, Ethiopia, East Africa, Kenya, West Asia and Tanzania to attract NRIs and foreign patients. Singh added, “With rising prices on medical treatment in UK, US and other countries like South and East Africa, there has never been a better time to combine a trip abroad along with treatment. India is a recent entry in medical tourism compared to developed countries. A large number of private hospitals and super speciality hospitals have come up in the recent past.”
