Title:
In Developing World, Health Services May Be Just a
Phone Call Away
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Sending and receiving money by text message. Sharing
crop prices. Just talking to a loved one far from
home. These are some of the ways that mobile phones
have changed lives in developing countries. Another
way is through e-health, electronic health services.
One example is a telephone hotline in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Callers can receive information
about family planning and the prevention of unwanted
pregnancies. They are able to speak privately with
trained operators about birth control methods and
about health clinics. The nonprofit group Population
Services International and a partner launched the
service in two thousand five. The United States
Agency for International Development finances the
program. And an agreement with the Vodacom company
makes the service free to callers. We talked with
Jamaica Corker, on her cell phone, at the Population
Services International office in the D.R.C. She
said: "The hotline has given us an opportunity to
take advantage of cell phone technology, to reach
people outside of our intervention zone with family
planning messaging. The hotline allows them to call
in no matter where they are and to ask us the
information that we can provide." Jamaica Corker
says more than twenty thousand people called the
hotline in two thousand eight. More than eighty
percent were men. She says this is mainly because
men own most of the phones. The group also has
family planning hotlines in Benin and Pakistan. And
it is launching a mobile phone program to gather
records on condom sales around Tanzania. The journal
Health Affairs recently published an issue on
"E-Health in the Developing World." Editor Susan
Dentzer says e-health is improving lives in
different ways. For example, in Rwanda cell
phone-based technologies are being used to keep
track of drugs given to patients with H.I.V. Rwanda
is at the leading edge of developing nations in
using these technologies to advance health and
health care. In South Africa, a campaign of text
messages about H.I.V. led to a large increase in
calls to the national AIDS helpline. And a program
in Peru sends text messages to patients with H.I.V.,
reminding them to take their medicines. And that's
the VOA Special English Development Report. Tell us
about e-health services where you are. You can share
ideas and find our programs at
voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
