Doctor-to-Doctor Network to Help Save Lives in Ghana

America has 37 doctors to every 10,000 patients, while Ghana has 1 doctor to every 10,000 patients. There is a lack of physicians in Ghana that can tend to people in need. Many doctors leave the country for better paying jobs in the "West," while the Ghana government has struggled to keep doctors in country by building better equipped facilities to train more students to become doctors. Though that is just one long term goal, a new short term fix has taken place. The use of cell phones and free doctor-to-doctor texting. Now doctors in Ghana have over 2,000 physicians in the states who can give them access to valuable medical information, professional advice, patient referrals and emergency response instructions whenever they need. This new network of doctors will hopefully provide lifesaving health interventions.

I think this is the first step to actually doing something that will really make a difference. It seems like there are more and more Africans coming to the states to study medicine; nevertheless, a lot of their aspirations are to go back to their country, but they end up staying because the benefits of salary in the US outweighs the lack-there-of back home in Africa. Where sending money back home instead of returning to increase the number of doctors available is more of a viable option to them. I think it's great that we are trying to improve quality of life over there, and I really approve of our willingness to help out other countries, but I feel like there should be more done then just sending text messages to countries who really need medical care. And before people blast me about how the US has it's own medical care problems and should be focusing on that before anything else. You are right, we do have huge medical insurance issues and quality of care in a lot of areas in the US are horrible, but we elect the idiots in congress who vote to keep our medical care that way. So maybe it's more of a educational problem for the US then a medical one. Either way, I liked this article and believe it is relative to corporate responsibility because the company Africa Aid, based in San Francisco, is making a difference and creating solutions to problems that cost a lot of money that they might not have.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-otto/cell-phones-saving-lives-_b_760417.html