Telecommunication and Health
| Date | 01 October 1978 |
| Author | Gordon Wolstenholme |
| Published date | 01 October 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711787800600201 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
339
TELECOMMUNICATION
AND
HEALTH
GORDON
WOLSTENHOLME
IN
April
1978,
a
small
group
of
people
came
together
in
the
strange
setting
of
a
tiny,
impoverished
and
beautiful
West
Indian
island
to
discuss
the
potentiality
of
advances
in
a
most
sophisti-
cated
science
to
bring
aid,
at
the
humblest
level,
to
individuals
and
families
in
the
poorest
rural
settings.
During
the
past
decade
much
thought
and
experimentation
has
been
put
into
the
use
of
satellites
in
orbit,
which
can
beam
audio
and
visual
transmissions
to
selected
areas
of
the
world’s
surface
for
purposes
of
communication
and
education.
The
meeting
in
Grenada
was
concerned
particularly
with
telecommunication
for
health
education
and
health
care.
Medicine
throughout
the
ages
has
been
an
art
limited
to
re-
assurance,
comfort,
the
relief
of
symptoms,
and
knowing
when
best
not
to
interfere.
Only
in
the
last
century
has
medicine
become
largely
a
science,
capable
both
of
cure
and
of
the
intelligent
pre-
vention
of
disease.
Inevitably,
the
greatest
scientific
progress
in
medicine
has
been
made
in
the
most
educated
and
developed
countries.
As
more
and
more
people
have
achieved
nationhood
they
have
wanted
as
a
right
the
same
expensive
medical
treatment
-costly
in
skilled
manpower
and
in
material
resources-as
that
available
to
the
patient
in
London,
New
York
or
Paris.
The
im-
possibility
of
achieving
this
in
countries
where
the
annual per
capita
budget
for
health
is
around
the
level
of
one
American
dollar,
compared
with
200
dollars
per
head
in
Britain
and
700
dollars
in
the
United
States,
is
not
faced
realistically,
but
instead
regarded
with
envy
and
bitterness.
Hospitals
on
Western
lines
are
constructed
without
recognition
of
the
requirement
for
a
great
variety
of
skilled
staff.
Such
hospitals
are
capable
at
the
most
of
providing
treatment
only
for
a
privileged
few.
Yet
there
can
be
no
doubt
that
the
greatest
transformation
of
ill
health
throughout
the
world,
in
developed
and
developing
coun-
tries,
could
come
from
a
few
comparatively
cheap
and
simple
measures.
If
there
is
a
&dquo;right&dquo;
to
health-and
I
think
there
is
such
a
thing-it
rests
in
the
availability
to
each
individual
in
this
world,
of
clean
water,
adequate
food
for
development,
basic
information
about
personal
hygiene
(including
famiiy
planning),
and
tried
and
safe
vaccination
against
major
diseases.
Clean
water
alone
would
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