from the fingertips on screen to medication delivery at home and education in remote areas in Africa.
Between 60 % - 80 % of the gains goes DIRECTLY to the (Tele)medicine Project The rest will be spent to ENHENCE this project f.i. by traveling to Africa and other costs...
Manual therapist Jo Vandemeulebroucke and his wife, co-worker Veerle Matton, are the ‘pioneers’ of the KEI medical unit. With the Kujali Project, which means ‘caring’ in Swahili, they are working on improving access to medical care in rural areas. Passionate people with their hearts in the right place who are happy to make their Knowledge, Experience and Insight available to The H-Web!
Jo Vandemeulebroucke: In August 2021, our association had invited Pol Hauspie to speak. There was a mutual click. I have great appreciation for what Pol has achieved in speech technology. To me, he is one of the greatest Belgian entrepreneurs. And his commitment to The H-Web confirms his value as a human being. Veerle and I immediately felt that we would like to be volunteers for this organization.
Veerle Matton : As a child, I dreamed of working for Doctors Without Borders in Africa. But I have no medical training. And life sent me in a different direction. Meeting Pol and later Dirk Kerkhof was an answer to that dormant commitment. Our practice is running well, our children have made a good start in life, Jo and I both felt it was time for something new. As human beings, you ultimately want to mean something in the world, for others. The fact that we can put our knowledge and experience at the service of sick people in Africa through The H-Web gives us enormous satisfaction.
Jo : At the request of Pol and Dirk, we set up the KEI Medical Unit to promote medical care in rural areas. In the coming months, we will set up a medical post in a number of pilot villages in Rwanda and Burundi. People can visit a nurse there and a Western doctor via teleconsultation. There is a chronic shortage of doctors in Africa. Many African doctors go and work in the West once they have graduated. This is how we tackle the shortage. The doctor uses teleconsultation to make a diagnosis and formulate a treatment. But the nurse also plays an important role. She is the intermediary between the patient and the doctor. Any medical procedures are carried out by her. She is, so to speak, the doctor’s hands. In this way, the distance of thousands of kilometers can be bridged in a very warm and human way. In the coming months, we want to create a database of Belgian doctors who want to devote some of their time to The H-Web, people who also want to put their knowledge and experience at the service of patients in Africa. Because of the Covid situation, they were overcharged the last few months, but we know that the desire and commitment is there.
Veerle : We also focus on educating the local population. The nurse cannot do all this on her own. She will need staff to, for example, manage the medicines and monitor hygiene. We will soon be going to Africa to start up a few posts. Once we find a suitable nurse who is comfortable with our way of working, things can move very quickly.
Jo : Pol, meanwhile, is working on rolling out the Internet in rural areas to make teleconsultation possible and to stimulate entrepreneurship among the local population. And with the help of drones, medicines can easily be brought to the patients. The need is high, the patients are there, and with the help of the many volunteers of The H-Web, we can turn this plan into a reality very quickly. We are really pleased to be able to send this along
By Christina Van Geel – The Happinness Way Magazine
