Telemedicine can bridge healthcare gaps — LASHMA

LAGOS— THE Lagos State Health Management Agency, LASHMA, has urged residents to tap into the opportunities that telemedicine offers, saying it is almost as good as talking to the doctor physically for a specific scope of services.

LASHMA said although more people, especially those in underserved and vulnerable communities were subscribing to it, there was a need to intensify awareness to deepen public trust in telemedicine.

Permanent Secretary of LASHMA, Dr. Emmanuella Zamba, said this on the sidelines of the Implementation Research to Test Equitable Telehealth, PDSA Wave One Report, a project carried out by LASHMA in collaboration with Gates Foundation, Solina Centre for International Development and Research, SCIDaR, and VillageReach in Lagos.

Zamba said: “It is like an 18-month project, although there were delays. The objective is for us to, at the end of the day, be able to integrate it into what we are doing as health insurance to fit into the design that we already have on the ground.”

 We do have telemedicine embedded in the standard general plan, which is the current social health insurance plan, but all the learnings from here will help us to refine what we do so that it is now sustainable and is complementary access to care for people, especially those that need it.

“People who don’t have the immediate fortune of having a doctor at their doorsteps can use it. If you look at the cost of having to enter a vehicle to the hospital, the queue, from the comfort of your home or your shop, you can speak to the doctor. Yes, it does not offer everything, but at least for the basic primary healthcare, you can get it.”

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