Zimbabwe’s health system has received a major boost following Econet Wireless’ innovative service that will help its subscriber’s access instant medical advice from doctors through their mobile phones.
Head of Econet Health, an arm of Econet Wireless responsible for the facility, Dr Precious Lunga said the Dial-A-Doc service will enable Econet subscribers to access health information throughout the day.
‘’We have a serious health problem in Zimbabwe as evidenced by the shortage of health practitioners,’ said Dr Lunga adding that the doctor patient ratio is standing at one doctor for 15,000 patients, one nurse for 13,000 patients and one mid wife for 800 expecting mothers.
‘With this new innovation citizens, will be accessing health information from qualified doctors at any time and anywhere as long there is Econet coverage,’’ said Dr Lunga.
Speaking at the same event Dr Portia Mananganzira applauded the Dail-A-Doc service saying that it will improve health knowledge among the Zimbabwean people.
“We are impressed with the introduction of another Health product from Econet, Dial-A-Doc, which anyone can easily access by just dialing their phone.
“Dial-A-Doc will provide health information to the people at an affordable cost. This will provide an accelerated response to the health needs of our communities, which will help ease the many problems associated with lack of access to medical service providers,” said Dr Mananganzira.
However, there were mixed feelings about the new service from twitter users with some complementing the service while some condemned it.
Rassluckas (@luckyngirande3) was optimistic about the product when he said that he welcomes the initiative.
“We have something to smile about as we now have healthcare at our doorsteps”, said Rassluckas.
The service which is being changed $0.70 has however, received criticism from some Twitter users claiming that prices being changed is too high.
Edmore Mbuzana said that $0.70 is not justifiable claiming that if the call takes more than 10 minutes one has to pay $7.
The economic meltdown which is now more than a decade has seen health services deteriorating leading to the rise of consultation fees amongst private doctors.
Photo credit: www.techzim.co.zw
