~An initiative to make quality healthcare accessible to more people in remote districts~
Narayana Health Group that runs RN Tagore Institute of Cardiac Sciences , Kolkata and Narayana Superspeciality & Multispeciality hospitals in Howrah today announced the launch of its fourth e- Health Centre in West Bengal at Tikiapara in Howrah district in association with Rebecca Belilious Charitable Dispensary – a health project of Samaritan Help Mission. The other three e-Health centres are located at Payradanga, Raidighi and Rajarghat – New Town in West Bengal. Launched with an aim to make primary healthcare and diagnostic facilities accessible to people living in remote areas where access to quality healthcare is not available, this e-health centre comes as a boon to the people in Howrah district and surrounding areas who live in remote locations and do not have access to quality healthcare, specialist consultation and diagnosis. The centre in Tikiapara will be managed by Narayana Health. Shri Arup Roy, Hon’ble minister of state for Agriculture, Government of West Bengal was the Chief Guest for the event and launched the e-Health centre in the presence of Dr. Rathin Chakraborty, Mayor – Howrah Municipal Corporation, Mr. Ajey Ranade, Inspector General of Police – South Bengal, Mr. D P Singh, Police Commissioner – Howrah district and Dr. (Mrs.) Bhabani Das, Chief Medical Officer – Howrah among others. Mr. Deepak Venugopalan, Head – Tele-radiology & Clinics and Mr. R. Venkatesh, Zonal Director (East), Narayana Health presided over.
“Leveraging technology such as telemedicine and cloud capabilities helps us to overcome challenges associated with the geography of rural areas such as connectivity, electrical supplies, sourcing medical teams and so on. The e-Health Centres enables us to accelerate our goal of reaching out to more number of people especially in remote areas and deliver early detection and diagnosis at low costs”, said Prateek Jain, Facility Director, RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences.
HP and Narayana Health, one of India’s leading and cost effective healthcare providers , partnered in July 2014 to expand the number of HP cloud-enabled e-health centres in India, in order to deliver quality, affordable healthcare services to more people living in the country’s resource-deprived locations.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), the global standard of doctor-population ratio is 1:250. In India, about 75% of health care infrastructure, medical manpower and other health resources are concentrated in urban areas where only 27% of the population live.
e-Health centres are rapidly deployable healthcare facilities powered by cloud-enabled solutions that connect residents in remote areas with quality, affordable preliminary healthcare services. Housed in shipping containers or existing facilities, each e-health center is customized and fully equipped with cloud-integrated diagnostic equipment, HP workstations, and videoconferencing features that allow patients who couldn’t previously afford or access quality healthcare to receive remote consultations and diagnoses from physicians and specialists at RN Tagore Hospital as well as Narayana Superspeciality Hospital .
The e-Health Centre located at Tikiapara will conduct several healthcare outreach camps and awareness programs in Howrah and adjoining areas and will provide curative care and progress towards early diagnosis and disease preventions through evidence based care.
Making healthcare facilities available and accessible in remote areas of rural India has been an ongoing challenge due to lack of medical resources, poor infrastructure and connectivity. The e-Health Centre overcomes all these road blocks as it is a self sustained infrastructure backed by robust healthcare services through remote access (cloud technology). The centre will be continuously monitored by senior and experienced doctors from Narayana Health through techniques such as biometric surveillance and cloud-enabled medical devices.
Incidentally, the premises in which this e-Health Centre is being established was donated by Rebecca Belilious – a Jewish lady. Mamoon Akhtar popularly known as Mamoon Bhai in Tikiapara – a reflection of the parable of the Good Samaritan used a portion of this land to set-up the Samaritan Help Mission that has benefited a large number of children from rural and underprivileged family gain access to good education in English medium schools as well as vocational training given to girls and women in the community making them self sustainable. Rebecca Belilious Charitable Dispensary has associated with Samaritan Help Mission for all community health projects. There are many other community programs that are initiated by Mamoon Akhtar including mobile health services, pharmacy, online classrooms and access to quality care and learning.