Ooredoo Myanmar is partnering Pact, a leading international NGO, to provide the country’s first telemedicine service.
Built on the Mobile Health Clinics project, another Ooredoo-Pact partnership, the telemedicine service uses Ooredoo’s cutting edge telecommunication service to facilitate connection between patients and doctors.
The telemedicine service complements the existing mobile clinics project which provides access to health care services from trained professionals in communities with limited or no access to care. Ooredoo-Pact mobile clinics, which have been in operation since February 2015, provide health services once every 6 weeks in each target village. Hence, the telemedicine service plays a vital role in bridging the gap between these clinic visits, ensuring continuity of contact between patients and doctors to provide informative referral services.
Trained health care volunteers use mobile devices connected to the Ooredoo network to facilitate consultations between patients and doctors. The service provides hard-to-reach communities with an opportunity to consult a doctor and receive first line support from a distance, enabling patients to seek care on a timely basis and thereby mitigating the potential complications that may develop from delayed access to care for treatable ailments.
Ooredoo also provides a mobile alert service to increase awareness of availability of free and accessible healthcare services, via a network of direct alert recipients who in turn share this information word-of-mouth with their family, friends and neighbours.
Chris Peirce, Chief Legal and Regulatory Officer of Ooredoo Myanmar, said: “We’ve partnered with Pact Myanmar to provide funds for mobile clinic services and now Telemedicine services by using our telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical consultations from a distance.”
The Mobile Health Clinic project provides access to basic health care, maternal and child care, and child nutrition services through two mobile clinics in Madaya Township, Central Myanmar. Pact mobile clinic teams travel to 48 cluster village clinical sites, covering 110 villages and a population of 80,000 people, to provide primary healthcare services.
The telemedicine services are available 15 villages – Ah Nyar Kaing, Boe Gyi Kyun, Koe Pin, Kyar, Mway Pu Thein, Mya Thi Dar, Myin See, Aye Thar Yar, Shar Say Chat, Sin Kyun, Te Kone, Aung Chan Thar, Yae Chaung Bo, Ywar Tan Shey, Zay Haung – in MadayaTownship.