[GKD] eHealth: Expanding Health Care Services in Pakistan

[Zubair Faisal Abbasi]

Greeting from Pakistan and ePoor.org (http://ePoor.org)

Appended is an introductory document about "eHealth : Expanding The
Health Care Services" of ePoor.org. I hope, it gives you an overview of
our initiatives along with providing some basic facts about health
situation. We eagerly look forward to your participation, insight, and
guidance for our programmes. ePoor.org hopes that your esteemed
organization joins hands with ePoor.org and spreads the message of
'Relevant and Empowering IT for The Poor' across the widest
cross-section of society.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

- Zubair Faisal Abbasi.
---

Programme Brief:

eHealth : Expanding The Health Care Services


* The Health Situation In Pakistan

-   Infectious Diseases - including Tuberculosis, Malaria and Dysentery
account for 82% of all Pakistani deaths.
-   Two-thirds of all neonatal deaths are due to Tetanus.
-   In a population of over 100 million, only 35% have access to clean
drinking water. Only 15% have access to sanitary toilet facilities.
-   Each year over 750,000 children die - needlessly, from largely
preventable diseases.
-   60% of all children age 5 and under suffer from malnutrition.
-   500,000 children suffer from mental retardation due to iodine deficiency.

Looking at the above health facts, one feels gravity of the situation
and expresses the need of launching concerted efforts in the field of
health care services. However, a close look on the above also
suggestively reminds that the incidences of death and disease, in many
cases, can significantly be reduced through building human capacity and
providing access to health information and services. This is especially
true in training and awareness-raising practices covering mother and
childcare, immunization, and personal and community hygiene.

In other words, the point lies in innovatively expand the incidence of
participatory and interactive health care services so that they become
regularly and cost-effectively accessible to poor and the
underprivileged communities.

Till now, community participation and development approach has been
instrumental in generating the critical mass and momentum for
sustainable health care services and social well-being amongst the poor
communities. This approach has especially been important in the
strategies of the non-governmental organizations and Rural Support
Programmes and no doubt stayed highly successful in a number of
instances. The success rate is high particularly in the project areas at
rural community levels.

For example:

In 1989, at the commencement of APPANA SEHAT project, when surveyed, 14%
of the population was found to be suffering from different illnesses
during last thirty days. In June 2000, after about eleven years of
successful interventions, only 1.5% of the same population was found to
be ill. This obviously means that 89 persons out of 100 are no more
suffering from any kind of illness.
(Source: APPNA SEHAT Report 1989-2000)

Luckily, the modern age Information Technology (IT) solutions coupled
with the time-tested community participation and development approach
have potential to open a broad range of opportunities for capability
enhancement to manage and sustain better health care (including
empowerment, access to and effective use of IT for health care). These
innovative applications and creative mergers of Social-ware (community
development) and Technical-wares (IT applications) promise to make the
services of preventive and curative heath care systems go beyond the
geographical and time limits especially through the internet and new
media technologies.

In order to expand the health care services, this plan of action seeks
to harness at least the following potentials of IT, while igniting
multi-sectoral 'development dynamic' (i.e., expanding opportunity to
access and build health related information, services, and help improve
welfare profiles of communities) :

*   Decision making support.
*   Better service delivery.
*   Online community development and multi-stakeholders network
development.
*   Knowledge generation, management, sharing, and navigation.


So The Goal of eHealth Is:

Harnessing IT For Expansion And Improvement In Health Care Services For
Poor Communities And Individuals.

Project Beneficiaries

Community and Community Health Workers; Health Project Management Staff;
Pharmacists; Social Organizers; Para-medical staff; Medical
Students;Doctors and Health Consultants; Development Experts; Community
Development Organizations and Networks; Researchers; Donor and
Development Agencies; Health Volunteers.;Government Departments
Specially the Health Department.

Regards,
Zubair Faisal Abbasi.
CEO/Project Director,
ePoor.org
Waheed Plaza, West 52, First Floor,
Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Ph: 092-051-2201484, 0303-7759274

Pro-Poor means enhancing capacity of the POOR to perform PRO i.e.,

[GKD] Computer Shipping and Transport Costs

[Adam Nash]

Dear List Members,

In dealing with some recent requests for donated computers, it has
become obvious that the hardest aspect of the process is finding the
money to pay for the shipping costs.  We are based in Melbourne,
Australia, so it is a long way to pretty well anywhere in the world! I
am hoping to start a discussion on this list about possible solutions to
this problem.

As an example, we currently have requests for 150 computers to Kennedy
and his group in Kenya, only 6 computers to WATCH in Nepal, and 10
computers plus one scanner to The Monitor in Zambia. One ship container
holds between 250-350 computers, and costs around US$2000. Hiring one
whole container is the preferable approach, as it means that the only
people who handle the computers are us at our end, and the recipients at
the destination. However, for small requests such as the above for
Zambia and Nepal, a ship container seems way too much. Then of course,
there is the sometimes quite significant problem of transporting the
computers from the port that the container arrived at to the destination
(which may be some thousands of kilometres from the port).

Given that most requests we get are not for large amounts of computers,
it strikes me that the ideal solution would be to find a shipping
company that is willing to sponsor us in the form of offering free
transport whenever we need it. Otherwise, if it is done on a per-request
basis each request would require a new 'please help us' effort on phones
and email, which obviously presents some significant worktime and
'compassion fatigue' problems.

Does anyone have experience, contacts, or ideas to offer on this tricky
problem?


Best wishes to all,
Adam

--
Adam Nash
com.IT - The Community IT Project
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.vicnet.net.au/~comit




***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership***
To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type:
subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd
Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at:

[GKD] GKP Events Update

[Shady Kanfi]

Hello All,

Here's an update on the June events currently registered in the GKP
Events Calendar:
http://gkaims.globalknowledge.org

Business Information Technology Management Enabling Cultural Awareness
Date: Jun. 4, 2001 to Jun. 6, 2001
City/Country: Cairo, Egypt
Venue: The American University in Cairo

INET 2001: 11th Annual Internet Society Conference
Date: Jun. 5, 2001 to Jun. 8, 2001
City/Country: Stockholm, Sweden
Cost: $ 1144  - $ 1236

IIS/IDF Development and Information Seminar on Impact Evaluation of
Services and Projects
Date: Jun. 6, 2001
City/Country: London, United Kingdom
Cost: £105.75
Pre-registration: Required

Southern Africa Economic Summit 2001
Date: Jun. 6, 2001 to Jun. 8, 2001
City/Country: Durban, South Africa
Themes: Health, Digital Divide, Governance and Democracy, Enhancing
Regional Integration

Strengthening Information Exchange and Networks on ICTs in IICDís
Focal Countries
Date: Jun. 11, 2001 to Jun. 15, 2001
City/Country: The Hague, The Netherlands

Enhancing Availability, Accessibility, Dissemination, Utilization and
Evaluation of Online Information
Date: Jun. 11, 2001
City/Country:Oxford, UK
Venue: St Anne's College, Woodstock Road, OX2 6HS

Annual General Meeting 2001, Internet strategies for development in
Europe and the South
Date: Jun. 11, 2001 to Jun. 12, 2001
City/Country: Bonn, Germany
Venue: Gustav-Stresemann Institut e.V.
Cost: 80 Euros (all-inclusive)

>From development co-operation to e-development:  Symposium on ICT
policy and practice in developing
Date: Jun. 12, 2001
City/Country: Leiden, The Netherlands
Pre-registration: Required

Socio-technical change: lessons from ICT in developing countries
Date: Jun. 15, 2001
City/Country: Enschede, The Netherlands
Pre-registration: Recommended

Third European Conference of the European Federation for Information
Technology in Agriculture, Food
Date: Jun. 18, 2001 to Jun. 20, 2001
City/Country: Montpellier/France
Pre-registration: Recommended

Technology and poverty reduction in Asia
Date: Jun. 18, 2001 to Jun. 19, 2001
City/Country: Paris, France
Pre-registration: Required

Ethiopia in the Knowledge Age
Date: Jun. 18, 2001 to Jun. 20, 2001
City/Country: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Pre-registration: Recommended

You can learn more about any of these events by visiting GK-AIMS:
http://gkaims.globalknowledge.org

Help the GKP keep the development community up-to-date on ICT and
knowledge related events by contributing your own event information
directly on the calendar website.



Regards,
-Shady Kanfi

---
Shady Kanfi
Bellanet International Secretariat   <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Ottawa, Canada<+1 (613) 236-6163 x2056>





***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership***
To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type:
subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd
Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: