E-health services in rural communities in the developing countries

Health service delivery to rural communities has always been a vexed problem for most governments in developing countries. Several factors impeding the success of government programmes in this sub-sector include corruption, inadequate supply of drugs, paucity and/poor quality of medical personnel, lack of medical equipment and facilities, cost (transportation to the hospital, medical bills) to the patients of obtaining medical attention and interference by unorthodox medical practitioners. This paper surveys the problems that inhibit provision of adequate preventive and curative health care to rural communities and suggests affordable and sustainable ways in which ICT can be used to solve these problems. Special emphasis is given to use of ICT for public enlightenment for preventive health care and also for the implementation of affordable access to curative health care.