Mkapa Hospital to begin provision of telemedicine services

Dar es Salaam. The Benjamin Mkapa Hospital (BMH) is finalising the process to start providing the telemedicine services to citizens from remote parts of the country that are lacking specialized health services.

The provision of telemedicine services not only will increase the number of Tanzanians who receive treatment from a team of specialists, but also will minimize time required for disease diagnosis and treatment.

The move will significantly support the country’s strategy to become the region’s medical tourism hub, providing reliable health services to citizens in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and the East African Community (EAC).

The revelation was made on Tuesday when a team of journalists visited the BMH located at the country’s administration capital of Dodoma to witness the Sh129 billion investment made by the government through the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

Speaking to journalists, the BMH radiology officer, Dr Henry Mwanasasu said the investment involves installation of digitalized equipment at the hospital that have been interconnected into the Information Communication Technology (ICT).

“Therefore, installed equipment meets the requirements for provision of telemedicine or tele-radiology services. This means that BMH is now going to become a treatment hub receiving laboratory tests from different parts of the country for interpretation, diagnosis and treatment consultancy,” he said.

“Medical examinations will be conducted at different parts of the country such as Manyara, Singida, Iringa regions etc. They will be available to the hospital through technology for interpretation by specialists who will also recommend means of treatment to patients’ health practitioners in their respective areas,” he added.

He said the move will reduce costs that would have been incurred by patients for travelling to BMH in order to look for specialized treatment.

Dr Mwansasu said a team of experts through telemedicine arrangement will advise the patient’s doctor at the respective region on desirable treatment including operations whenever there is a need of doing so.

Furthermore, Dr Mwansasu said currently, BMH is linking the hospital’s interconnected technology with different parts of the country where citizens are expected to benefit.

“These efforts are also expected to strengthen medical tourism which is among the key strategies of President Samia Suluhu Hassan administration,” he said.

According to him, the BMH was currently attending patients from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), noting that ongoing efforts are expected to broaden services to many other neighbouring countries.

Earlier, Dr Mwansasu said the BMH provides ultrasound examinations in three rooms and X-Ray services through its two machines.

He said one of them dubbed-Del Medics was procured through the funds disbursed by President Hassan to revive economic and social sectors adversely impacted by Covid-19.

“This machine is a digital machine with a huge capacity of attending an average of 90 to 100 patients per day. Its efficiency reduces the minimum time required to attend a patient as compared to the analogy era,” he said.

According to Dr Mwansasu, the digital machines provide pictures with international standards, making it easy to identify diseases patients are suffering from.

He outlined other equipment such as the mammography machine for screening women's breasts and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that uses magnets in its functioning.

Furthermore, he said the hospital is also equipped with lithotripsy, fluoroscopy and the Computerized Tomography (CT) scan machines that are all digitalised, hence increasing the disease diagnosis efficiency and accuracy as compared to the analogy equipment.

The Tanzania Editors Forum (TEF) Chairman Deodatus Balile said a time was ripe for political parties to visit such projects in order to understand the success recorded in the sector.

“Leaders of political parties should be taken around to witness these achievements, if they decide to remain quiet after witnessing, then that will be up to them and their souls,” he said.

NHIF director general Bernard Konga said unlike companies that generate profits from their operations and issue dividends to the government, others are mere service providers.

He said despite the Sh129 billion investment made by the government through NHIF, the investment was done to protect the fund’s sustainability.

“Most investments we make do not intend at generating profit, rather our focus is to build the capacity to provide better services in future,” he said.