| Dr.Jithendranath, Sultan Bathery, Wayanad |
Sick tribesmen of Wayanad used to trudge into his clinic after suffering alone for almost a week. An enquiry revealed the hapless reality: their hamlet was at a walking distance of 8 km from the bus stop. If they managed to negotiate that distance and travel by bus to reach a primary health care centre, there was no guarantee that they could meet the doctor on duty.
This set Dr.Jithendranath thinking. He wondered about the possibility of employing telemedicine to ease their suffering. He roamed the adivasi hamlets and recognized Kurichiars as most responsive to his idea. Basil, a health inspector provided him a database of all the 585 inhabitants of the area.
He then obtained permission from the Sarva Shikskha Abhiyan authorities to make use of their single-teacher school in the hamlet to store his communication equipments.
Two village women conversant with conducting medical camps were roped in to act as interpreters, examiners and pharmacists. The adivasis used to come to the school, tell the helpers to connect to the doctor. From the other end the doctor would listen to their woes and give instruction to the pharmacists to issue appropriate free medicines.
Initially, the patients had to call the doctors at fixed times. But later he made himself available to them round the clock. Further, his database was upgraded from bulky paper files to a laptop. As he listens to the patients, he updates the database and records the conversation on the phone.
Ironically, what hampers doctor’s effort is not lack of medical resources. Rather, it is connectivity. If a sufficiently strong network is available in the forest, then he is ready to upgrade his telemedicine to video clinic. He has even budgeted the money for the scheme.
Dr.Jithendranath, who originally belongs to Kalliassery in Kannur, chose the cool environs of Wayanad three decades back. His wife is Sheela. His daughter Bhadra is an engineer in USA and his other daughter Kavitha is a doctor.
Courtesy:
C.Narayanan (text), M.B.Dhanish (photo), Mathrubhumi, July 10, 2011
Contributed by: Administrator
