Hi, Tim wrote:
> building or infrastructure. Paper records are far > less likely to be stolen. My experience is that paper records in practice don't get stolen, except in circumstances where a country's infrastructure and political system have completely collapsed: One example is Uganda during the period of military dictatorship and civil war from 1972-86, where significant parts of the records kept by for instance the Department of Surveys and Mapping were sold as scrap paper to pack fish in the local markets in Entebbe. The point about theft is of course valid re notebooks - if it was a question of large scale deployment of workstations in every consultation room etc I would not go for notebooks, but in a case of a clinic/community health centre having one or two PCs, then notebooks would be my choice (with solar panels in case of no grid electricity). It all depends on the circumstances, which is also why Adrian's question is so difficult to answer meaningfully: The 'spec' was only "missionary going to Africa" - but Africa is as diverse as Europe or the America's. Where I live in Cape Town, it's no different from any large city in Europe. Go 5 km east, and your into the Cape Flats, masses of grey apartment blocks similar to those found in many US and West/East European inner cities. Go another 15 km east, and you find informal settlements similar to the "favelas" of Latin America. Another few hundred km east, and you're into what (I presume) most of you think is Africa - rural subsistence farming communities. If Adrian's buddy is going to set up shop in a REAL rural African setting, then theft is probably much less of a problem, both because crime in such communities are low or non-existent and because there won't be a market for stolen computers in such communities. So what I'm trying to say here is that you cannot really say anything about appropriate technology when you don't know any details about the setup. It's like telling asking somebody "I am moving to Great Britain. Do I need a 4-wheel drive vehicle there?" (still a bit of difference between Picadilly Circus and rural Wales, ain't it?) Finally, just so people don't think I'm totally hi-tech hostile: There are technologies and hi-tech solutions that are eminently suitable. One practical example: PHC facilities in many rural areas in South Africa have traditionally experience 1-4 weeks turn-around time for laboratory specimens (or no results coming back at all), resulting in such specimens generally not been taken. A recent pilot project used either motorbikes or local mini-buses (normally called "taxis" here) for ferrying sputum samples to the nearest lab, and then used SMS to send the results back (nearly all nurses have cellphones, or they received pagers). Result: TB passive detection increased 330%. Regards calle
