On a visit to southern Nigeria last October, Dr. James K. Gude of Sebastopol, Calif., and Mikel Cook of the Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise learned how hard it can be to bring medical care to rural areas.
“We drove 20 or 30 miles from the Federal Medical Centre of Yenagoa to a satellite hospital, and it took an hour,” recalls Gude, an honorary Rotarian who is medical director of Sebastopol-based telemedicine services company OffSiteCare. “Big chunks of the road were flooded, and there were people all over the place; we were going through villages and trying not to hit anybody.”
On a visit to southern Nigeria last October, Dr. James K. Gude of Sebastopol, Calif., and Mikel Cook of the Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise learned how hard it can be to bring medical care to rural areas.
“We drove 20 or 30 miles from the Federal Medical Centre of Yenagoa to a satellite hospital, and it took an hour,” recalls Gude, an honorary Rotarian who is medical director of Sebastopol-based telemedicine services company OffSiteCare. “Big chunks of the road were flooded, and there were people all over the place; we were going through villages and trying not to hit anybody.”
Along the way, Thomas and Cook helped found a nonprofit, Global OffSite Care, devoted to bringing Rotarian resources together in support of telemedicine projects worldwide. Gude, whose company provides telemedicine services to several hospitals in Northern California, has been an enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteer.
The Nigeria connection began in 2013, when Princess Frances Kemelagha, a psychiatrist at the Federal Medical Centre in Yenagoa and a member of the Rotary Club of Yenagoa, learned about Global OffSite Care at the Rotary International Convention in Lisbon and was instantly captivated.
So it was that in August and September 2015 – thanks to a global grant and the efforts of Rotarians from Sebastopol, Rancho Cotati, and Santa Rosa East, plus the Sonoma State University Rotaract Club and others – she and five colleagues flew to Northern California for 11 days of training under Gude in telemedicine best practices.
Since then, Kemelagha says, she has seen the training’s effects in better outcomes for both patients and doctors. Thanks to telemedicine, a 75-year-old patient from a remote village was found in need of a potentially lifesaving pacemaker. The colleague consultations via telemedicine are having other unexpected benefits. “Our resident doctors are learning so much more that they are beginning to pass their exams with ease,” she notes.
During a follow-up visit to the Federal Medical Centre last October, Cook and Gude found the Nigerian team making good use of their new telemedicine capabilities. Those include a donated InTouch Health robot, a device that allows the remote physician to see and examine the patient and even hear the sound transmitted from a stethoscope to aid in making a diagnosis.
“The need for telemedicine can never be overemphasized,” says Kemelagha. “Health care should be for everyone – for the underprivileged, for the underserved, for the remote areas – not just for the rich.”