State News Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH)

Telemedicine: advanced technologies in service of health

First on-line operation successfully performed in Turkmenistan

Science Day celebrated in Turkmenistan for the first time was marked with a remarkable event. The Supreme Council for Science and Technology under President of Turkmenistan with assistance of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Turkmenistan organized a video conference that vividly demonstrated the opportunities of telemedicine that henceforth replenished the arsenal of Turkmen health professionals’ techniques.

Telemedicine provides the vast opportunities for clinical medicine. Advanced telecommunication and computer technologies enable to engage medical specialists in rendering routine and emergency medical care at a distance as well as consulting, exchanging experience in diagnostics, treatment and prevention of diseases. Telemedicine provides a real opportunity for broadcasting the operations, master classes, interactive lectures and conferences.

The video conference was technically supported by the Cisco Systems international company. The Envision Group – one of Russia’s leading system integrators closely collaborating with the Russian Association of Telemedicine delivered and installed the equipment.

The cabinet ministers, scientists and healthcare workers, journalists gathered together in the assembly hall of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry. Congratulating on the remarkable event Cisco Systems Director General for the CIS Sergey Mihnevich, who had specially arrived in Ashgabat to participate in the teleconference, emphasized that next-generation transmitting equipment enabled to personify medical services and substantially reduce the actual costs, completely met the top-priority goals of modern healthcare – to render high-quality and affordable medical aid. Touching upon the notable achievements of Turkmen medicine resolutely advancing towards the progress the guest put emphasis on the company’s interest and readiness to establish close and fruitful co-operation in this important and very promising field.

Applying innovations technologies is a priority of Turkmenistan’s development. The conference participants could see the vast opportunities provided by high technologies, telemedicine in particular with their own eyes. The high-technology equipment gave an opportunity to watch the ophthalmologic operation performed on-line as well as to know the opinion of the foreign leading specialists, who were thousands of kilometres far away from Ashgabat.

The international consultants – a group of the German doctors from Munich including head doctor of the Grossharden Medical Clinic of the Ludwig-Maximilian University Klaus Parhofer and a famous ophthalmologist Arthur Miller were on-line for several hours. From Russia’s largest telemedical centre – the N. A. Semashko Clinical Hospital General Director of the S. N. Fedorov Eye Microsurgery State Scientific and Technological Complex, Doctor of Medicine, Professor Khristo Takhchidi watched the operation being performed.

In the Turkmen capital the monitors provided the dialogue at a distance were installed in several places including the conference hall of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry, the Supreme Council for Science and Technology under President of Turkmenistan, the operating room and the assembly hall of the S. Karanov Eye Diseases Research and Clinic Centre. The specialists of the Research and Clinic Centre, students and teaching staff of the Turkmen State Medical Institute were present at the conference. From the assembly hall of the S. Karanov Eye Diseases Research and Clinic Centre Professor Kurban Karanov communicated with the participants of the TV bridge, told about the diagnosis and the methods of a surgical operation and commented on the operation performed by Director of the Eye Diseases Research and Clinic Centre Klychnepes Annanepesov. A patient – 55-year-old woman was operated on cataract by implanting an intraocular lens without stitching.

Congratulating the colleagues on the successful operation the German specialists expressed the best wishes to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, whose endeavours were directed towards application of advanced technologies in national medicine enabling to bring it up to the international level, to provide high-quality and qualified medical aid to the Turkmen people. Joining the German colleagues’ congratulations Professor Khristo Takhchidi highly valued the Turkmen surgeons’ professionalism and expressed belief that the fruitful co-operation and professional dialogue would be maintained.

Thus, Turkmen medicine has made a breakthrough that means new heights of the use of progressive technologies and new achievements in protecting the health of the Turkmen people.