By MN Reporter
The Sori Lakeside Hospital’s cancer treatment center in Sori town, Migori county has come in aid for patients from Western part of Kenya and even Tanzania.
The center has helped alleviate the high cost associated with cancer treatment across country with having services closer to people, this has helped the Ministry of Health plans to increase accessibility of treatment.
In a boost for reaching patients closely, the hospital has launched a means of tele-medicine to help reach their patients virtually which will furtjher cut cost of treatment.
“This online tele-conference center has pre-installed medical equipment and doctors and technicians in standby to help monitor patients who are far,” Clinton Ochieng’, an ICT officer at the hospital said.
He added that “some of the cancer patients we handle can get consultation and checking on their progress easily instead of travelling for longer distance. We can also advice a patient on short notice when need be, just at a click of a button.”
The Tele-medicine cancer center has also helped the hospital in-house staff with connect with medical experts and oncologists from around the globe in helping patients with referral cases or in ordering medicine.
“The biggest gain we have had with the tele-medicine center if reaching those in rural areas and our level of reviews and treatment has gone higher as we have greatly scaled down cases of noncompliance to treatment,” Ochieng’ added.
“Once a patient has been booked at our facility for cancer treatment we capture their bio-data and feed it in the tele-medicine central data for ease of follow up,” he explained.
Dr. Seth Pius, a medic at the hospital said every Thursday is dedicated to the tele-medicine center for reviews of patients progress and checking on their medical reports.
“We are a team of at least 10 doctors, both in the country and globally who handle cases of patients,” he said.
Mary Atieno Oloo a patient who hails from Kasipul in Oyugis within Homa-bay county said she was taken through the procedures of tele-medicine and she is upbeat of the outcome.
“Sori and Oyugis towns are far apart and travelling here for routine medical procedurehas been very costly, I spend Sh4,000 on every trip and this will help in cutting costs,” she said.
Steve Ogony, a local said county referral hospitals across the country should consider making cancer referrals to be accessible.
“This is a private hospital which was started by women groups and has made strides in health, government should consider coming to Sori for benchmarking,” he said.
