My Story

Intro

Providing affordable and accessible healthcare to the rural population of Pakistan is a big challenge due to an acute shortage of qualified healthcare specialists and adequate health facilities and the geographical isolation of some regions. It is estimated that 75% of the population of Pakistan reside in rural/remote areas where there is hardly any access to the basic healthcare services and this results to many patients only reaching hospitals when their medical problem becomes acute. Throught the utilization of technology Shamila is bringing adequate healthcare now even to remote areas.

About Me

I am serving as a faculty member at National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan. I am extremely passionate about using information and communication technologies for social goods. Currently I am playing a key role in planning, implementing and coordinating the activities of project called “Jaroka: Tele-healthcare”, which is being implemented at UM-Healthcare Trust in rural Mardan. The aim of this project is provide affordable and accessible healthcare to underserved community in rural Pakistan. Despite of all the challenges faced by the project, I am really hopeful and motivated to bring a positive change in the health sector of Pakistan by introducing technologies such as telehealthcare and mobile platform. My dream is to replicate Jaroka model to all the rural areas of Pakistan. 

I strongly believe that nurturing youth to start their own social projects is a key to attain the MDGs especially in developing countries.  In this regard, I have established a Social entrepreneurship Club in NUST, which is running successfully to promote the concept of social entrepreneurship to youth. Its mission is to raise awareness ammong youth about social entrepreneurship, as well as guiding them in starting their own sustainable social ventures.  Under this club various social entrepreneurial sessions, startup insider sessions, social ventures, free medical camps, donation campaigns, volunteering activities etc have been successfully organized.

I am also working as an honorary member of Special Talent Education Program (STEP). This organization is dedicated to work for the people with disabilities. I am fond of traveling, learning  different cultures, doing social networking and  reading books.

My Venture

JAROKA utilizes a mobile platform to extend tele-healthcare services in rural Mardan. We believe that the percentage of diseases and death can easily be decreased by early diagnosis, awareness, and affordable regular treatment provided to the underserved communities through properly utilized ICT.The goal is to devise new and effective ways for bringing a rapid change in healthcare domain for rural communities.

One of my team members, Mr.Atif Mumtaz, build a facility called “UM Healthcare Trust” in an extremely poor village called Zahidabad located in the Mardan (city), in memory of his late mother. Once the facility was build, he realized that no doctor was willing to go there to serve. Further research showed us that Mardan district with total population of 1.6 Million people has 76/1000 infant mortality rate and 201/1000 maternal mortality rate. Despite of these alarming statistics there are only two hospitals in the whole city which are either too expensive or out of reach. Let me mention here that people is in this area live on less than $1/day and can't afford expensive treatment. Women are confined to their home and find it difficult to travel without a shepherd and as a result these people either never get to see a doctor during their whole life or  are treated by illiterate and unprofessional people.

This motivated us to think of innovative ways to provide an affordable and accessible healthcare of the underserved communities of rural areas and to attract doctors to work at UM Healthcare and as a result “Jaroka: Tele-Healthcare” was initiated.

Jaroka is one of its kinds of sustainable and scalable telehealth system that utilizes ICT and mobile platform to extend tele-healthcare based services in rural Mardan. All of the softare services are developed in National University of Science and Technology (NUST). Our services include voice, SMS, Multimedia Messaging (MMS), GPRS/Edge and VSAT to quickly and efficiently extend medical advice to local health workers in the field by connecting them to the network of specialists in Pakistan as well as abroad. This will enable them to provide better quality healthcare to the community they serve.

Since October 2007, the project had made significant progress in its mission of delivering high quality affordable health care to local villagers.   Despite the fact that we charge a nominal fee from patient, we have trreated around 23,000 patients (120-150 patients daily on average) at UM-Healthcare Trust. In 2009 we aim to train 50 LHWs in Mardan District and upon the successful deploymentof this project in Mardan, it shall be replicated to other parts of Pakistan.