BHOPAL | Saturday, March 7, 2009 | Email | Print | 
‘Tele-Medicine’ project still incomplete
Staff Reporter | Bhopal
The inordinate delay in the State's ambitious Tele-Medicine project seems to be getting longer as the project is still under process. The project originally was to be made functional by April 2008 onwards at 10 district hospitals, 2 charitable hospitals and 3 medical colleges across the State. The project aims at providing the necessary medical expertise through tele-conferencing at the places, where the services of expert physicians are not available.
The ambitious project of Tele-Medicine was devised by the State Health Department with the technical support from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). In the first phase, Balaghat, Mandla, Sidhi, Shahdol, Shivpurkalan, Jhabua, Mandsore, Khargon, Shajapur, Betul and Trust hospitals Padhar Betul, Yogiraj institute Mandla along with Medical Colleges of Bhopal, Jabalpur and Gwalior.
Madhya Pradesh Council for Science and Technology, which had devised the unique idea, is the nodal agency of this project. Senior MPCST Scientist Rajesh Arya, who is taking care of the project claimed that the necessary infrastructure have been installed at the various centres recently. He also claimed that these centres have started functioning on testing basis.
ISRO had already installed the satellite dish at respective district hospitals in the State and the necessary training has also been imparted to the medical staff from the hospitals concerned. According to the unofficial sources, the ISRO had outsourced the task of supplying the necessary hardware and software for this project in this project but the company reportedly failed to supply the same due to one reason or the other in the recent past.
The change of guard at MPCST last year has also hampered the progress of this project to a certain extent.
The first phase would connect 10 District Hospitals, 3 Medical Colleges and 2 trust hospitals of the state with reputed hospitals of the country. The patients from these 15 hospitals would get the medical assistance from top most physicians of the country through tele-conferencing facilities.
However the future of this crucial project is still hanging in balance for long. Manohar Agnani Mission Director (National Rural Health Mission) and the Health Commission, when quizzed on the possible deadline for the project being functional, declined of having any information regarding project.
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