Lexicon of Health Care for Africa: M Is for Mobility, T Is for Transport

The physical movement of people and services to connect the 70% of people who live in rural Africa with health care is one of the most vital yet neglected aspects of health care on that continent.
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In my last blog I wrote about the focus on innovation at the World Economic Forum for Africa. One of the most significant changes in development in Africa is the spread of the use of new technologies, particularly the mobile phone - now known as 'mhealth'.

There is well-founded hope that mobile communications will impact health care across Africa - both in rural and urban areas. They have huge potential for the flow of information. But mobile does not mean mobility.

It has to be recognised that despite the exciting potential, there are limits to what a mobile phone can do. Much of rural Africa does not have signal reception - I have found myself climbing steep hills in rural areas hoping to catch a signal. I have not attempted climbing trees but I have seen it done.

Nevertheless, connectivity will improve. But the day that a mobile phone can immunise children, deliver anti-retroviral drugs, or help prevent a mother suffering obstetric complications will be quite a day.

A mobile phone may be liberated from a static point of reception, but it does not create mobility. It is mobility - the old fashioned technology of the internal combustion engine - that propels the ambulances and other vehicles that are so necessary, and yet so neglected, for equitable health care across Africa.

Let's call it 'thealth'. Transport for health care.

The physical movement of people and services to connect the 70% of people who live in rural Africa with health care is one of the most vital yet neglected aspects of health care on that continent.

We can't let the well justified excitement about the potential of the mobile phone distract us further from addressing mobility - physically connecting the health care with the community. This may be an old technology but a hands-on approach to health care will never go out of fashion.

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