Smile supports telemedicine with SMiFi

This latest donation by Smile is regarded as a huge boost to the high brow hospital’s drive towards telemedicine practice.Telemedicine involves the use of information and communication technologies to provide clinical health care remotely, eliminating the distance barriers. It can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in, not just […]

This latest donation by Smile is regarded as a huge boost to the high brow hospital’s drive towards telemedicine practice.
Telemedicine involves the use of information and communication technologies to provide clinical health care remotely, eliminating the distance barriers. It can improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in, not just distant, but also developing countries.
FCMC was where Liberian-American and ECOWAS envoy Patrick Sawyer was admitted as the first Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) patient in Nigeria, after he fell sick upon his arrival to the country from Liberia.
In all, he infected 11 workers at the hospital including late Dr Stella Adadevoh and late Justina Ejelonu, a nurse.
Consequently, the hospital was shutdown and some of its equipment discarded due to exposure to the virus.
Smile Communications Nigeria Limited has therefore joined forces with the Nigerian Telemedicine Network (NTN) and other donors to equip FCMC with an All-Purpose Medical Solution System (APMS) as the hospital ventures into telemedicine services.
Speaking at the event, Tobe Okigbo, Chief Corporate Services Officer for Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, assured that the company would provide the hospital with connectivity capacity of 6mbytes per second. 
He noted that Smile appreciated the hospital’s effort in saving Nigeria from what could have been a major health catastrophe.
He said,  “Smile identifieswith you on the incidents that happened, at the same time appreciating your efforts in rescuing the situation. Now you are going into telemedicine, Smile’s SMiFi is the network enabler to reckon with.”
The Chief Executive Officer and Lead Consultant, Health Informatics, Sabaoth Technologies Ltd and coordinator, Nigerian Telemedicine Network, Dr. Dania and the coordinator of the All-Purpose Medical Solution System (APMS) CSR projects confirmed that the tools provided will showcase how technology has transformed healthcare across board.
He said, “Our partners comprising Smile Communications, Intel, Microsoft and Debonia came up with the All-Purpose Medical Solution System (APMS) as a collective Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Our goal is to ensure even better productivity through efficient delivery of services.”
Also, the Chief Medical Director of First Consultant Medical Centre, Dr. Benjamin Ohiaeri, chronicled the incidents that led to the hospitals’ resolve to embark on telemedicine.
He said, “You want to partner with us viz a viz telemedicine. It is like you pre-empted us. We are already looking at commencing telemedicine. For instance, we created a knowledge center which includes an e-library. Knowledge is the most important commodity in the world and our goal is to ensure that requisite knowledge is at our finger tips at all times.”