NCOP
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO. 540
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 28 October 2011
(INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO. 33)
Mrs B L Abrahams (DA-Gauteng) to ask the Minister of Health:
(1) Whether all health facilities have the telemedicine sites; if not,
why not; if so, (a) how many sites, (b) where are they situated, (c)
what types of health facilities are they and (d) how many
consultations are sent from each site in each week;
(2) whether any private sponsorships have been sought to fund the
establishment of the telemedicine sites; if not, why not; if so, (a)
which companies have donated funding, (b) how much did they donate and
(c) what was the total cost of establishing each telemedicine site;
(3) whether his department has any plans to roll out telemedicine to
other health facilities; if not, why not; if so, (a) what plans, (b)
which health facilities and (c) when?
CW628E
REPLY:
1) The telemedicine sites are not found at all health facilities. The
telemedicine links exist between selected health facilities (usually
resource-constrained facilities situated in remote areas) and centres
(usually located in urban and tertiary institutions) where there are
high specialist skills and competencies.
a) 95;
b) They are situated across all nine provinces. A total of 65
telemedicine sites are in KwaZulu/Natal and Eastern Cape and the
remaining 30 sites are spread across the seven provinces;
c) The types of health facilities are hospitals, health centres and
clinics; and
d) The number of consultations sent per week is not collected
nationally or provincially as part of the National Indicators
Data Set. The information on consultation will be available in
the facilities.
2) The National Department of Health has not approached private sponsors
to mobilise funding of the telemedicine programme. Telemedicine should
be funded from government resources in order to ensure its
sustainability.
a) Not applicable;
b) Not applicable;
c) Not applicable.
3) The Departmentâs policy is to rollout telemedicine in many under-
served and remote areas in order to increase access to scarce and
specialist resources.
a) The expansion of telemedicine sites has been very slow from 28
sites in 1998 to 95 in 2011. The plan is to ensure that the
existing telemedicine sites have all the necessary capacity and
capabilities to function optimally and fully. There are critical
enabling factors that must be considered thoroughly before a
facility is selected to be a telemedicine site. A tele-radiology
site requires broadband infrastructure for e-connectivity to be
efficient in sending radiology images to a specialist centre.
b) The Telemedicine Sub-Committee of the Ministerial Committee on
Health Technology has been established and tasked with
developing a new telemedicine strategy which will recommend the
process to be considered in rolling out telemedicine and also
set out a roadmap for sustainable upscaling.
c) The timeframe to be covered by the telemedicine strategy is 2012-
2016. Preparatory work is currently underway to ensure that a
number of health facilities are equipped with bigger broadband
connectivity. A list of 1Â 155 health facilities (34 of which are
health facilities with telemedicine sites) has been submitted to
the Department of Communications.
END.