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Mobile Phones Will Make Defaulter Tracing History in Control Programmes
Posted on 27 November 2009 by
Defaulter tracing used to consume a lot of time and resources (vehicles, motor bikes, spare parts, fuel, etc) and only 40% of defaulters were reached.
Huge investment in the communication sector has improved communications enormously. The prospect of high and rapid earnings has provided developers with the incentive to provide network coverage over more or less the whole country. Here it is a symbol of development and prestige to own your own mobile phone. In Sudan, you see even street children with mobile phones. Women, who sell tea under trees, take orders by mobile phone.
This may seem very funny, but it is the social life in underdeveloped countries such as Sudan. You will also find people complaining about having to pay for health care and educational services – unlike before, when these services were free. The very same people are happy to waste money on pre-paid cards for their mobiles and will chat nonsensically with their relatives and friends never once complaining about the cost!
However, the development of the mobile phone network has helped national programmes tremendously in tracing defaulters. The health worker at the master clinic adds the numbers of the landlines or mobile phones to patients’ addresses. This procedure started in 2005 and is developing rapidly. In the case of patients who do not own a mobile phone, the health worker takes the number of another member of the family or sometimes even of the chief of the village or area.
Being able to use a US $ 5 pre-paid card to reach patients has meant that instead of reaching just 40% of defaulters, we have been reaching 80% of defaulters.
Last April and May, Sudan ran short of multi-drug therapy due to shipment delays. Once the multi-drug therapy (MDT) arrived, calls were made on pre-paid US $ 10 card by the relevant state clinic to all those patients who needed to resume treatment. This measure resulted in huge savings in time and resources.
Defaulter tracing is becoming history – do not say that I didn’t tell you first!
Dr Emile Tanyous, Medical Advisor
E-mail: emile@glra-sudan.net