This native of Sumerpur in Rajasthan believed he was living on borrowed time after several doctors said he was suffering from cancer.
Then a miracle happened.
A wise radiologist, who did the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan on Mokati, transferred the brain scans via internet to a doctor in Mumbai for second opinion.
Dr Deepak Patkar, chief consultant, computer tomography (CT) and MRI, Nanavati Hospital, studied the images and immediately sent his feedback: it was just a blood clot.
Rural India is home to hundreds of Mokatis who die slow deaths or live life in constant fear of imminent death due to improper medical diagnosis.
But things are changing.
More and more healthcare practitioners are embracing what's called telemedicine.
"We get over 250 scans per day from different part of the country and the US. Indian images are mostly from small talukas. The hospitals in these places conduct tests and send the images over internet. Our consultancy is used either when doctors don't have enough exposure to certain test, such as CT or MRI, or needs second opinion," said Patkar.
He personally attends to about 50-60 cases a day.
The telemedicine network becomes essential as in most cases reading the scans can be confusing.
"The chance of errors reduces with the experience of a doctor in reading the scans for diseases," said Ashish Dhawad, COO, TeleDiagnosys Services, which offers radiology services to hospitals in the US and health centres in small talukas.
Telemedicine may just be a concept for most others, but for the rural folk it's manna.
It helps make up for the poor health infrastructure. In most villages, there are hardly any doctors. Patients visit to primary health centres or district hospitals for bigger complications. But even the district hospitals don't have MRI and CT facilities. Patients either trundle to cities or choose to stay back, giving up all hope of a cure.
Thanks to telemedicine, many doctors are setting up small medical test centres at district and taluka levels.
Certified technicians conduct the tests and send the reports to doctors in cities for diagnosis.
All this saves not just the travelling cost but frees several patients of the mental trauma of living in the shadow of death.
"It has started in a big way on cities' periphery and is percolating beyond," said Dr Amit Kharat, who owns a company called Radiology Expert. Based in Pune, Kharat's company studies scanned images from the US and in and around Pune.
Telemedicine has also caught the attention of entrepreneurs. Doctors said many postgraduate students are setting up medical centres in "unserved" areas.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Tinesh Bhasin
Quelle/Source: Sify, 12.09.2007
