Khyber Medical University launches telemedicine service amid COVID-19 surge

PESHAWAR: With the government urging the public to stay at home and maintain social distancing amid the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and to lower the burden on existing medical facilities at hospitals, the Khyber Medical University (KMU) on Thursday started a telemedicine project.

The facility will see some 50 specialists provide free consultations and prescriptions to patients online, especially to those who are living in remote areas and the tribal districts of the province.  Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Governor Shah Farman formally inaugurated the project on Thursday. The telemedicine project chief Dr Abdul Jalil Khan said that similar departments have made considerable progress in providing therapeutic and medical advice to patients in foreign countries, however, in the public sector of the province, KMU has been a pioneer in launching the service without any cost to beneficiaries.

Dr Jalil said that the initiative will be particularly of benefit to people living in the remote areas of the province and will provide easy access to standard health facilities at their homes. In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, patients will be able to avoid a trip to the hospital or the clinics by using this service, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2020.