AFRICA QUARTERLY
Shashi Tharoor, the then Minister of State for External Affairs, and the then Chairperson of the African Union Commission Jean Ping inaugurating a telemedicine facility as part of the Pan African E-network at the AU Commission in Addis Ababa, Ehiopia, on January 28, 2010.
Countries on the continent can thus share India’s advancements in the healthcare sector despite the distance between them. Soon after the Indian cabinet approved of this project on July 5, 2007, Ethiopia was selected as the pilot project for the e-network that was launched in July 2007 (For details, see Ibid). Connectivity between the tele-education centers at the Addis Ababa University and Haramaya Learning Centers in Ethiopia and the Black Lion and Nekempte Hospital in Ethiopia with Care Hospital in Hyderabad was established. At present, the African Union has shortlisted three leading regional universities and two regional hospitals for participation in the e-network. These include the Makerere University, Uganda (East Africa), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology- Ghana (West Africa), University of Yaounde, Cameroon (Central Africa), Ibadan Hospital, Nigeria (West Africa) and the Brazzaville Hospital, Republic of Congo (Central Africa). As a part of the telemedicine project, live consultations are being offered in the healthcare sector to each of the member states of the African Union in various medical disciplines such as cardiology, neurology, urology, pathology, oncology, gynecology, infectious diseases/HIV/Aids, ophthalmology and pediatrics. In addition, offline consultations are offered for a limited number of patients per day from selected hospitals in
India. The project also offers skills upgrade through sharing of information with the medical personnel in the African countries through its Continuing Medical Education (CME) programme. (For details, see PanAfrican-e-Network Project, 2012a) However, the project is at a nascent stage and the care offered through telemedicine may not suffice for complicated cases that require state-of-the-art technology and hands-on experience. Thus though the PanAfrican e-network has a lot to offer to the healthcare sector on the continent, it has inbuilt limitations. Therefore, there is an urgent need to build capacity — in terms of infrastructure and medical skills for a sustainable heath delivery system on the continent.
India and the irony of ‘Medical Tourism’ It is incongruous that India that spends only about 4.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare has grown to be a preferred destination for “medical tourists” from Africa and other parts of the world (WHO, 2009: p. 95).3 The multi-million dollar state-of-the-art super specialty facilities in India amid squalor and poverty in the country offers a contradictory picture of India’s capabilities and domestic scenario in the healthcare sector. This is certainly ironical as citizens of the country who cannot pay for their treatment are not offered the same
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