"We are having trouble," said Gus Hunter, an ear nose and throat surgeon at Royal Darwin Hospital as he tried to show off a virtual consultation.
"It was working when we tried it yesterday," he added, as he struggled to hear what his patient, about 1000 kilometres away in Nhulunbuy, was saying.
After a few minutes the technology began to work properly, and Dr Hunter successfully got a look inside the patient's ear canal and was able to rule out a middle ear infection or perforated ear drum.
Dr Hunter, who was using an existing fibre link to Nhulunbuy to undertake the consultation, praised the system.
He said virtual consultations helped him manage his workload so that when he travels to remote areas he knows the patients he has booked for surgery are able to be operated on.
Another doctor at the hospital also performed a virtual consultation for a small group gathered, and this went off without a hitch.
Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the NBN would "ultimately if you look at what is happening across the world in health services, save lives".
Senator Conroy brushed off concerns that Tuesday's demonstration showed potential problems with e-health initiatives.
"You always get hiccups - your own cameras, your own microphones don't work regularly," he told reporters in Darwin.
Senator Conroy said the small glitch in the system during the demonstration involved trying to transfer the technology onto a large screen for TV cameras.
"If you saw it on the applications they use it on, it was perfectly good, reliable and consistent," he said.
The federal and NT governments have jointly announced a $20 million digital regions initiative to improve delivery of health and education services to people in 47 remote towns.
It will also help provide telehealth services to emergency rooms and resuscitation areas in NT regional hospitals.
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Quelle/Source: The Daily Telegraph, 31.07.2012
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