Zanzibar links hospitals to ICT backbone

Zanzibar. The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar will connect its 24 hospitals to the national Information and Communication (ICT) backbone in an endeavour to transform delivery of social services across the archipelago.

The director of Communications from the ministry of Works, Communications and Transport in the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, Dr Mzee Suleiman Mndewa, told journalists in Zanzibar yesterday that e-Health was part of the government’s wider plan to digitise delivery of social services.

The digitisation comes after the successful implementation of a project to build the national ICT backbone.

“After the backbone, the government is now building access networks which will see the system being connected to all the 24 hospitals in Zanzibar,” Dr Mndewa told journalists who visited Zanzibar yesterday with a view to learning how ICT was being used to stimulate economic activities in the Isles.

Already, a data centre that will store information about all the 24 hospitals in Zanzibar, has been built at Mazizini in Unguja.

“The government is determined to ensure that it uses ICT in improving delivery of various social services across the country…This data centre is complete and currently, we are working on the modalities of uploading data from all the 24 hospitals across Zanzibar,” he said.

E-Health enables the relaying of patient data between different healthcare professionals. It is also a means of requesting diagnostic tests and treatments electronically and receiving the results. In certain cases, it also provides information electronically about protocols and standards for healthcare professionals to use in diagnosing and treating patients.

According to Dr Mndewa, the broadband services will also be connected to hotels, while ordinary Zanzibaris will also be free to get their connections so they can be able to engage in production of Television programmes and other productive undertakings.