Abstract
South Africa has engaged mobile phones to deliver
healthcare services (mHealth). Free SMS (short message service) text messages
are transmitted to patients and e.Mobile television messages are transmitted on
select channels. South Africa enjoys an unequaled mobile technology market in
Africa, totaling $25 billion in 2006. Although broadband penetration is
expensive, mobile phones have given direct access to healthcare providers who
previously lacked access. The South African Health Informatics Association, and
the South African Telemedicine Association, provide direction. Mobile
technology makes patients’ information readily available to healthcare
providers; facilitates training of healthcare workers; permits communication
between healthcare providers and patients; assists patients with medication
intake; and provides a variety of women’s healthcare services. Another goal of
using mobile phone technology for healthcare delivery is to encourage the
treatment and testing of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Evaluation of the use of mobile phones in
AIDS/HIV has shown improvement in healthcare services and in analyzing patient
data in a timely manner. However, illiteracy and software problems have
hampered delivery of healthcare services. This paper attempts to trace the
milestones that Mobile Health for Community Based Services has followed in
using mobile phone technology to deliver healthcare for South Africans. The
paper sets out to show the telecommunications infrastructure in South Africa,
which places the country in the vanguard in using mobile phones for healthcare
delivery. The country became apartheid-free when Nelson Mandela was elected
president in 1994. Heretofore, blacks were subjected to discrimination under
apartheid, which was a white-only minority government. In the article published
in The Guradian, “How Nelson Mandela changed the AIDS agenda in South Africa,”
Boseley describes the president’s commitment to fight AIDS. Mandela continued
the fight for AIDS long after leaving office.
