IT IS 2 pm. Dr Prabhat Kumar Chand, a specialist dealing with substance-use disorders at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru, speaks into the microphone: “Thought, Impulse and Cannabis — that is the topic of discussion today. Let’s begin.”
His audience of 15 community healthcare providers is spread far and wide, from Kabul in Afghanistan to Idukki in Kerala, and Dr Chand realises it’s important that his message breaks down those distances and reaches the last patient possible.
This is one of India’s 15 clinics under ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), a concept of weekly or fortnightly virtual clinics that use teleconferencing to bridge the gap in healthcare resources by using the best specialists to reach out to under-served areas.
Read more of this in a report by Kaunain Sheriff published in The Indian Express....
