Telemedicine

The attached map shows the selected sites in relation to each other. The National Department of Health is supporting the installation of telemedicine in KwaZulu-Natal, by covering the cost of the installation of the ISDN lines and the calls made for the first year of operation.

Telemedicine aims to reduce the number of patient referrals from smaller hospitals and community health centers (send sites) to the larger hospitals (receive sites), by giving the medical staff the necessary support they need.  This will also be of a great benefit to patients who will not need to travel great distances, but will be able to obtain the necessary treatment in their own hospital. King Edward VIII and Edendale hospital have been selected in KwaZulu-Natal as receive sites. Dialogue and images are sent via ISDN lines from send sites to the receive site where a diagnosis can be done. Send sites can also communicate with each other.

TeleUltrasound
Seven send sites have been selected for TeleUltrasound, these are: G. J. Crookes hospital, KwaDabeka Community Health Centre, Mahatma Gandhi hospital, Osindisweni hospital, Phoenix Community Health Centre, Port Shepstone hospital and Stanger hospital with King Edward VIII hospital being the receive site.   All the equipment has been installed at the hospitals and training has been carried out. Ms. Prem Moodley at King Edward VIII hospital has been chosen to oversee the Tele-Ultrasound project in KwaZulu-Natal and to promote the use of the equipment in the institutions. This project is slowly developing but as is the case with most new projects, especially when using new and unknown technology there are teething problems which has caused the progress to be less than satisfactory.

TeleOphthalmology
Christ the King hospital and Madadeni hospital have been selected as send sites for Tele- Ophthalmology with both Edendale hospital and King Edward acting as receive sites. Edendale hospital is also involved with the “Fight-for Sight” Tele-Ophthalmology project, which links to National and International hospitals. A decision has been made to pool the resources in order to offer a more effective service to patients. The equipment has not been installed at King Edward VIII and further training needs to take place before Tele-Ophthalmology can become fully operative.