Ranchi, March 1: If you are spending a fortune travelling to other cities for medical treatment, perhaps you could give tele-medicine a try.

Satindra Singh of Ranchi would visit Bangalore on a regular basis to meet doctors at Narayan Hriduyalaya for a specialised cardiac diagnosis and medical treatment. This time round he had a similar trip on the cards when he heard of a tele-medicine centre in the state capital.

“He approached us to find out whether he could avail of tele-conference facilities with the doctor of his choice and we arranged the same for him,” said Dr K. P. Daruka (in picture by Prashant Mitra) of state’s first private tele-medicine centre.

Dr Ravishankar of Narayan Hriduyalaya, Bangalore was approached who examined the Singh’s reports that included diagnostic tests like ECG and other tests done in Ranchi itself and prescribed the medicines.

Singh managed to save as much as Rs 10,000 along with precious time. He also escaped the harassment that he could have been subjected to during his proposed Bangalore visit.

He spent Rs 2,000 for the specialised treatment through the tele-conference.

The centre is receiving a tremendous response claimed Dr Daruka, who is a consultant physician with Nagarmal Modi Seva Sadan. It was inaugurated on February 25 and since then has handled over a dozen cases. While some were genuine cases, a few came to experience tele-medicine.

“There are some patients who came for the sake of receiving treatment through tele-medicine. We compiled all their past and present health related ailments and transfer the same as data through an ISDN line to get an inscripted prescription from the centre doctor. This facility is available for as low as Rs 500,” said the centre in-charge.

The centre has been started as the pilot project. Baselines of ISDN video-conferencing facilities and sophisticated computers with required software have been stalled at an overall cost of around Rs 10 lakh.

“We will soon go for high-end solutions but all that depends on how receptive the new technology is. We also have long-term plans to spread tele-medicine to the periphery of all the important cities of Jharkhand,” Dr Daraka said.

As of now, the centre has tele-medicine facilities with super-speciality doctors based at Narayan Hriduyalaya in Bangalore, Apollo Hospital in Ahmedabad, Fortis Hospital in New Delhi and Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, among others.

Apart from cities their focus is also to reach out to the masses in the rural areas. But doing the same is difficult as he state, is yet to be connected through broadband and ISDN lines in these regions.

However, the problem could be resolved through installing V-SAT facilities that are provided by the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO).

“That would require a government initiative as the project cost for installing a V-SAT would be over Rs 20 lakh. However, we are not averse to tie-up with the government for such plans,” said Daruka.