Panel members at Africa Regional Ministerial meeting on E-health
Ghana’s Vice President, Mr. John Mahama urged African Health Ministers to work out an “African position on the way and manner information and communication technology must be deployed on the continent to avoid the situation where solutions were not based on our problems and challenges.”
Opening the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Africa Regional Ministerial Meeting on E-health in Accra on 10 June 2009, the Vice President charged the Health Ministers with defining an E-health framework for Africa that would seriously consider needs and resources and review polices and strategies for achieving the continent’s major health goals beyond the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
He admitted that E-health would not work like a magic wand to resolve all the health problems Africa faced, but if systematically implemented, it would address problems such as underdeveloped infrastructure.
Hosted by the Government of Ghana, the Accra meeting was the last in a series of meetings organized as part of the 2009 Annual Ministerial Review (AMR), to be held during the High-level Segment of the Economic and Social Council in Geneva this July.
The Vice President mentioned some of the health challenges in Africa such as infrastructure, equipment, personnel, resources, the inequality in health facilities and the brain drain of health personnel. He was however hopeful that with advances in technology where even surgeries were done with on line assistance from specialists, “E-health holds a significant potential for solving some of our protracted challenges in the health sector.”
Mr. John Mahama hoped that the use of E-health would support rapid response systems to enhance performance, empower people to seek quality care and make the right demands on the health care system, improve quality by supporting the transfer of skills and expertise to health workers and improve management and technical efficiency.
He said African leaders were committed to improving the health of their people through cost effective and proven means and this must be done with the conviction that “these will lead to improvements in the health status of our people.”
The Assistant Secretary-General of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Mr. Thomas Stelzer said Africa as a whole was off track on meeting the MDG targets for reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating infectious diseases. However, there was ample evidence the goals could be achieved across Africa.
He encouraged governments, donors, foundations, businesses, international organizations and civil society to unite and work together to formulate coherent and concerted health policies using emerging technology, traditional practices and models of public health to tackle the shortcomings of the health sector.
According to Mr. Stelzer, the three major health challenges were focus on acute care and late-stage disease, expensive and difficult to obtain healthcare in most developing economies and the world’s aging population which was an economic strain on governments, insurers, taxpayers and caregivers. These problems have been compounded in Africa by lack of infrastructure, heavy disease burden and the emigration of health workers.
Mr. Stelzer said E-health was one of the ways to overcome the challenges in the health sector as it could improve healthcare appropriate to each economy and enable a transformation from disease management to proactive wellness. He described E-health as a tool “for enabling people to access health services and at the same time raising awareness.”
He announced the collaboration between DESA and the World Health Organization (WHO) to demonstrate the potential of E-health with two pilot “Texting 4Health” campaigns in Uganda and Ghana. While the campaign in Uganda starts on 17 June 2009, the campaign in Ghana would take place in the near future.
The President of ECOSOC, Ms. Sylvie Lucas mentioned that the proper use of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in health could help to reach all the MDGs improving quality and efficiency in primary care and making it possible for those in remote areas to access services and expertise.
She said that the Accra meeting was an opportunity for African Health Ministers to map out E-health approaches to meet the needs and circumstances of countries and communities in the region. It was also an occasion to examine the E-health position in Africa and address the challenges.
Ms. Lucas hoped that the Ministers would at the end of the meeting come out with how they would use the opportunities offered by ICT to promote E-health in Africa.
Welcoming the delegates, Ghana’s Minister of Health, Dr. George Yankey said Ghana offered to host the meeting to serve as a turning point in the drive to modernize health services in Africa and present a framework for action that would help decision making on E-health solutions. Dr. Yankey hoped that pretty soon ICT would become an integral part of healthcare delivery in Africa.
The opening session was chaired by the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Ms. Sherry Ayitey who called for the use of ICT to improve the health of women and children, standardization in its application and affordable technology to enable countries to adopt it.
Over 100 participants, among them, government ministers, health experts, policy makers, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and business representatives attended the two-day meeting.