Telemedicine networks to bring healthcare to rural Kenya

hivisasa.com – October 1, 2015 – World Health Partners (WHP) has committed to providing essential healthcare services to eight million women and children in Kenya.

WHP made a formal commitment at UN Headquarters to provide services through a unique model that connects local entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals and telemedicine services to bring healthcare to underserved communities in Kenya.

In a press release on Wednesday, the initiative is in support of the UN Secretary-General’s Every Woman Every Child campaign to deliver maternal, new-born, and child healthcare services in rural Kenya over the next five years.

The programmeme launched in 2010 by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is a global movement to mobilise action by governments, multilateral, the private sector and civil society to remedy the many health challenges faced by women and children around the world.

The goal of the campaign is to put into action the re-launched Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, which is a roadmap for better financing, policy, and healthcare service delivery for the world’s most vulnerable women and children.

“The Every Woman Every Child approach is very much in line with WHP’s model to bring healthcare within a walkable distance for women and children in the world’s most underserved communities,” said Gopi Gopalakrishnan, WHP President and Founder.

“I am proud to make a commitment to expand our work in Kenya to reach eight million people with maternal, child, and new-born care through our unique approach of using technology and business acumen to connect community health workers, local entrepreneurs, and healthcare professionals to expand services,” he said.

Working in Kenya and India, WHP is a non-profit organization that delivers healthcare services to rural and underserved communities by building branded, telemedicine-enabled healthcare networks called Sky.

Gopalakrishnan said these networks connect village healthcare providers with more highly trained medical professionals through professional connections as well as mobile and digital networks.

In Kenya, WHP has launched The Sky Network in Homa Bay, Kisumu, and Siaya counties with support from the respective county ministries of health. WHP’s commitment to Every Woman Every Child would greatly expand its work in Kenya and is valued at a contribution of 7 million USD (Sh736.3 million).

“We are thrilled that WHP is committing at the highest level to grow its work in Kenya,” said Dollina Odera, the programme lead of WHP in Kenya.

Odera said WHP’s model can help women register their pregnancies, get early prenatal care, and help them receive timely high-quality care especially for high-risk pregnancies and for their children.

She said that the networks save lives in places that are otherwise hard to reach.

Odera said WHP aims to achieve this expansion by partnering with the public sector, including collaboration with 300 government-trained community health volunteers as well as an additional100 health entrepreneur, primarily women, who WHP will train to offer basic care in consultation with remote doctors.

“World Health Partners’ model of empowering female health entrepreneurs provides a 21st-century solution to meeting health outcomes,” said Natalie Africa, Senior Director, Private Sector Engagement at Every Woman Every Child.

“By supporting women’s economic empowerment – which lies at the heart of the development challenge – and harnessing the power of new technologies and partnerships, the model promises a practical, community-centred approach with a truly sustainable impact,” said Natalie.

WHP’s healthcare network in Kenya is modelled on years of successful work in India, where Sky Networks in two states have offered more than 160, 000 teleconsultations, largely for primary care.

Through the Sky Network, women are offered reproductive health services and children are offered testing and treatment for tuberculosis, pneumonia, and diarrhoea.

Odera said the approach has produced stunning results. Bihar, India, where WHP works, has seen a 50 percent drop in cases of diarrhoea and pneumonia over two and half years.

In some districts in Uttar Pradesh, collaboration between WHP and the public sector helped double the number of women seeking Intra-uterine Devices (IUD) insertion services for family planning and upped antenatal care eight-fold as compared to districts in the state where the public services were not reinforced by WHP’s network.

Abraham Khan for hivisasa.com

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