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Telstra's bush broadband stand hurts healthcare
12 Aug 2003
A country GP says the lack of broadband connectivity in rural Australia is putting lives at risk. Dr Horst Herb says connectivity is the "number-one concern for doctors today". Thirty per cent of Australians live in rural and regional areas that basically have no connectivity other than phone lines - "the situation is scandalous", he said.
Dr Herb practises in Cohuna, Victoria and said that rural doctors "desperately want to do telehealth". Instead, they are forced to send patients to major centres by ambulance at great cost to the health system.
More than 90 per cent of GPs now use a computer, but if they don't have connectivity, they won't have any meaningful health IT, Dr Herb stated. Improving health outcomes and saving money very much depend on exchanging information.
Dr Herb was very critical of Telstra in particular, which, he said, has demonstrated a lack of interest when talking to doctors about communications problems in regional areas. He is part of a group of medical and IT professionals who met in July and concluded that a reliable Internet capability of at least 256Kbps for every healthcare provider in the country should be achievable within one year. And extending the universal service obligation on telcos to provide nationwide broadband access should be achievable within three years.
Australian IT, 12/8/03.
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