PR Newswire, Feb. 13, 2001
REMOTE CAMBODIAN VILLAGE ESTABLISHES INTERNET TELEMEDICINE LINK
AIMED AT CLOSING DIGITAL DIVIDE
ROBIB, Cambodia, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Linking one of the
poorest, most remote villages in Asia to expert medical attention at
a leading medical center will occur on February 15 between Robib
in northern Cambodia, whose per capita annual income is just $37 a
year, and Massachusetts General Hospital's telemedicine
department in Boston with the cooperation of the charity Sihanouk
Hospital Center of Hope in Phnom Penh.
On that day a trained Cambodian nurse from the Sihanouk Hospital,
furnished with testing equipment and a digital camera, will
undertake the first of a monthly nine hour journey by jeep from
Phnom Penh to Robib in Preah Vihear, isolated for more than a
decade by Khmer Rouge troops. (On February 15, however, she will
piggyback a ride up on a helicopter).
Last year a satellite Internet link was set up in the village, which
has no piped water, electricity nor telephone systems, to
demonstrate how the new digital technology enjoyed by millions in
the industrialized world, can benefit the world's impoverished rural
areas in leapfrogging to enhanced education, greater prosperity by
selling its handicrafts via the Web, and obtain medical assistance
from the best medical institutions.
Children in Robib have already gained impressive computer
skills, which are bringing them in contact with e-mail pen pals
around the world. A group of villagers trained in silk weaving are
also selling their scarves to web customers from Boston to Tokyo,
payable by credit card and delivered in a fortnight. Now the telemedicine
experiment is aimed at demonstrating that residents in the poorest,
most remote villages can gradually benefit from the same level of
medical attention citizens in major world capitals receive.
The nurse from the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope will examine
some 30 patients in Robib on February 15th much as in a
triage situation of an outpatient clinic of a hospital. She will
enter the information collected after examining patients while an
assistant takes digital photos of the symptoms. In the future X-ray
and other equipment will be provided to the village clinic for such
examinations. At the completion of the examination the nurse will
transmit her data and digital photos to the charity Sihanouk
Hospital Center of Hope in Phnom Penh, operated by a staff of some
300 medical workers led by a team of 10 American British, Filipino
and Japanese physicians, and to Telepartners a leader in telemedicine,
staffed by specialists from Massachusetts General Hospital and
Harvard Medical School in Boston. Doctors at both institutions will
study the data sent by the nurse and respond with instructions to
provide to each patient the same day.
While at Robib, the nurse will also hold sessions with the
villagers to instruct them in general preventive health care,
treating common ailments and will collect questions about medical
problems from the villagers which she will relay to the specialists
at both hospitals for a response to be placed on the village
web page in English and the Khmer language.
This will be the first step of a learning process in how villages in
developing countries can benefit through the Internet from medical
specialists when neither the villagers are able to move to visit
these doctors at their facilities nor can the specialist come to the
village.
"Charity hospitals such as ours," notes Dr. Graham Gumley,
director of the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope in Phnom Penh,
"are unable to reach the remote villages where most people
don't have the opportunity to obtain the type of medical attention
everyone deserves. More than half of our outpatients come to us by
foot, bicycle or motorcycle from hundreds of miles because there are
no medical facilities near where they live. Often their condition
deteriorates because of the long, strenuous trip. Telemedicine
is at a very early stage but this gives us the opportunity to study
how we can effectively contribute our knowledge to save lives
through long distance medicine to people who never dreamed we could
reach them."
Dr. Joseph Kvedar, director of Partners Telemedicine, says:
"This is an exciting opportunity for Boston physicians to reach
across the globe without leaving the Mass General. We are delighted
to extend our knowledge in this way."
"Using the Net to link some of the world's richest medical
knowledge to some of the world's neediest people in Robib,"
says Prof. Michael Hawley of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) Media Laboratory, "is more profound than I knew.
Nothing matters more than health. So try to imagine what it means
for the kids in Robib, kids who have never seen a doctor, and
not just kids but their parents, too, to suddenly have a chance to
learn about health with a glimpse through this medical portal in
their new village school. What a fantastic way for kids and their
families to begin to learn about health."
A helicopter will depart from Phnom Penh at 8 a.m. on February 15
with the nurse and others related to the Internet project at the
village. A limited number of media are invited to join this visit
which will include observing the schoolchildren using computers,
accessing the Web and exchanging e-mail; weavers producing the silk
scarves and providing income to the village through e-commerce; the
profits of the e-commerce contributing to a village run pig raising
farm whose profits go into supporting the elderly, handicapped and
unemployed widows, and the launch of the village telemedicine
project.
The helicopter will return the same day to Phnom Penh and
participants may return the same day or stay longer at a guesthouse
at the village. On the following day they are invited to join
Michael Hawley, MIT Media Laboratory professor, and his mother, Mrs.
Mary Kay Hawley, dedicate another rural school Prof. Hawley has
donated to a nearby village. The itinerary includes visits to the
Nicholas Negroponte School, the (Tokyo) Shintoshin Rotary Club
School and the Brad Washburn School whose children are also learning
how to use computers running on energy provided by solar panels on
the school roof.
The Internet access to the Wakako Hironaka School in Robib,
which includes a satellite dish linking to a satellite, is provided
by Shin Satellite of Thailand. The project is operated by American
Assistance for Cambodia/Japan Relief for Cambodia non profit
organizations. The telemedicine project is organized by Dr.
Graham Gumley, director of the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope in
Phnom Penh and Dr. Joseph Kvedar, vice chair of dermatology at the
Harvard Medical School, and director of Partners Telemedicine,
which offers the consultative services of physicians at the Brigham
and W omens Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. David
Robertson, on leave from the MIT Media Laboratory, is volunteering
his time to coordinate the links from Phnom Penh, and Douglas
Schlemmer is the program director for the Cambodia Rural School
Project. The Wakako Hironaka School in Robib is one of 200
solar-paneled, computer-equipped schools being built in Cambodia's
remote rural areas by donors whose contributions are matched by the
World Bank in cooperation with the Social Fund of Cambodia.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Media Interested in covering this event and
wishing to reserve limited space on the helicopter, or requiring
further information, should contact: Bernard Krisher in Japan at
3-3486-4337, cell phone, 90-30-888-493, e-mail, bernie@media.mit.edu;
or Nuon So Thero in Cambodia at 234-27823,
fax, 234-27823, e-mail, aafc@forum.org.kh