Cameroon's web doctor seeks to bridge gap in country's health sector

Cameroon’s health sector has had its share of challenges over the years.

According to statistics there are only two doctors for every 10,000 people. Furthermore, a large number of citizens cannot afford healthcare.

To address these challenges, a medical doctor is working to transform the way people in the country access information on their health.

Susan Enjema Aweh widely known as Doctor Sea gives health advice online.

She uses short videos to offer information and advice on how people can prevent and manage diseases as well as receive treatment.

“The challenges come as poverty, lack of information, lack of infrastructure because even if someone in the village is informed about what is going on in their body, they know what they should do what they should not do, if they need professional care they would have to leave from that village, sometimes to go somewhere else because the infrastructure is not there. And even when that health care is in the neighbouring urban setting, they might not even have the road,” said Aweh.

Despite, Dr. Sea’s advancements in helping the community, some physicians are skeptical about online healthcare programmes

Tatah Divine a doctor in the country says, “You really need a medical personnel, a trained Doctor to clerk you, examine and then maybe do some test to be able to say ok this person is having a kind of chronic typhoid which has perforated his intestines, and that can be an emergency, because it can easily lead to septicaemia, and many other things. So talking about going online to seek for medical attention, its quote unquote good but it can be very harmfully too.”

Apart from having an online health program, Dr. Sea also holds seminars and trains doctors for free. The doctor is working on plans to start filming videos other languages to educate more people.

Reuters