The state of the Angolan health system is critical and needs shock treatment. More doctors, more hospitals, more public policies. And more technology. The new 5G mobile networks may be one of the solutions to take basic assistance to rural areas and help to solve the chronic shortage of doctors and specialists that suffocates Angolan health.
A prolonged and acute headache, so we could describe health in Angola. The country's hospital infrastructure is precarious and insufficient. If the lack of human resources and inputs in cities is serious, in many parts of the interior of the country, even the basics do not exist. The diagnosis is worrying and requires an urgent cocktail of medicines in many colors.
The new 5G technology, experts say, can be part of this recipe, detonating an active element known as “telemedicine”. Experiences in other parts of the world give us perspective. In the analysis “5G Green: Building a Sustainable World”, Huawei describes how China created a successful system of distance consultations in communities where there was a lack of doctors.
It is important to remember that the Green 5G White Paper was launched on 19 July this year, in a partnership between the global consulting and research organization, Analysys Mason, and Huawei, the Chinese multinational present in Angola for over 20 years, over the which has supported the public and private sectors in terms of digital transformation.
Also in more advanced countries, 5G is revolutionizing health. In England, the document says, the development of new mobile networks has allowed the coronavirus pandemic to be circumvented, to guarantee the social distance between doctors and patients and to carry out 25,5 million remote consultations since March this year. Tools like Microsoft Teams or mobile applications created exclusively for the English healthcare system led the paradigm shift.
Cases like these give us clues about how the call and-Health it could help Angola to alleviate some chronic pain, including the lack of professionals. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in our country there are only 2,1 doctors per 10 inhabitants, between 3 and 5 times less than recommended. The few that exist, we know well, are concentrated in urban areas, forcing many Angolans to travel kilometers and kilometers to try to reach health centers without conditions alive. The bet on solutions powered by 5G could, like other places in the world, create remote consultation systems with obvious and immediate benefits.
The technology now available can also put an end, albeit a palliative one, to the tragic ironies of our health system. Like expensive, state-of-the-art medical devices that rot in hospitals because no one knows how to use them. Something similar happened in Chinese health centers, read “5G Green: Building a Sustainable World”. To reverse the situation, authorities have maximized the potential of the distance medical consultation platform to teach technicians in small communities to use dusty tomography and MRI machines. Ultimately, 5G technology will even allow remote control of these devices from a simple mobile phone. For Angola, training solutions like these would be a balm.
Distance surgeries and an injection of adrenaline
The list of the benefits of telemedicine is long and includes, among others, the possibility of sending heavy files (diagnostics, x-rays, exams) to doctors' mobile phones or using IoT (Internet of Things) devices and sensors to measure and monitor remotely, and in real time, the evolution of patients. However, in the field of health, the technology of “distance surgery” is the one that most attracts media attention in this new era.
Remote operations are nothing new, but 5G is taking them to another level. The low latency of this generation of mobile networks means that a doctor's indications anywhere in the world reach the operating room in a millisecond. Driven by this speed, technology and health teams are already working so that, in the not too distant future, a surgeon can sit in his office, connect to a 5G network and guide an arm instantly and with a high degree of precision. robot installed in a remote operating room.
In this “science fiction” scenario, the advantages multiply. Artificial intelligence applied to 5G mechanisms promises to increase the ability to predict latent health risks for patients, taking advantage of an unprecedented data processing capacity. And virtual or augmented reality will enable healthcare personnel to create interactive diagnoses and build therapeutic environments by spatial computing.
These “Hospitals of the Future” enthuse WHO itself. The institution is aware of the potential of 5G and recognizes that the efficiency, innovation and low costs of the new technology are vital to developing healthcare worldwide.
Angola does not have a solid technological infrastructure, it is true, but the possibilities are there and it is urgent to take them into account. In this prolonged treatment, the new world of 5G may be one of the adrenaline injections that the arrhythmic heart of our health system is screaming for.
Article written by Sílvio Almada, originally published in Newspapers and published in MenosFios with authorization from the author's press office.
