Rural Health Care In India – A Challenge

Abstract

India is developing very fast in many aspects. Metro cities are over flooded with expert doctors and ultramodern hospitals. For rural India it is a nightmare. Healing the wounds of mother India should be the national priority. Telemedicine seems to be a ray of hope for the villages. It has to connect rural patients at one end and expert doctors at big hospital in the city. Patient information, symptoms and images are to be sent. The doctors at the other end require the facility to store and retrieve the information. After diagnosis, prescription is to be transmitted back. For virtual doctor-patient interaction, broadband connectivity is required in scattered rural areas with full functionalities. To establish a new IP based broadband network is not feasible to fulfill the only purpose of Tele Medication or Telemedicine. For the purpose of E-governance, the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh etc., have established the network for video conferencing from State capital to villages in hierarchical orders. In this paper, we have focused on the issues related with Telemedicine and their possible solutions imparted by Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN).