We have seen huge changes in our day to day life during pandemic and lockdown. Changes in our Health and Education system is one of them. Looking at our health system few observable changes are having an online video call with doctors. In Education system we can see Online classes and lectures where educators uses digital board to teach there Students. All these changes where quick to make sure that both patients and students do not get affected by this pandemic.
 |
| Digital Healthcare & Education |
Impact of Digital Divide in Health and Education
When Education system changed its mode of operation from traditional to digital way students were forced to opt this mode of education. It adversely affected the students of rural areas where everyone don't have adequate digital device and also good internet connection is not available everywhere. It impacted their families because many of them lost their mode of livelihood during lockdown. All this created extra burden and tension on them because no one wants see their children's education getting affected by this.
Coming to Health sector majority of doctors look their patients by video conferencing as a precautionary measure to avoid COVID-19. This was an good initiative. But it hugely impacted the people of rural areas. Majority of people in rural areas depends on government run hospitals and health clinics. This health centres lack adequate equipments for Telemedicine. Thus many patients of rural areas get affected due to this. Although few doctors where there for emergency cases but it didn't included specialist ones. All this created burden to this patients.
Although Private hospitals of rural and urban areas had the facility of Telemedicine but due to its high cost financially weaker families could not afford them. However COVID-19 patients were given adequate treatment but patients of heart disease, Kidney, ENT, Cancer etc where mostly affected by this. This resulted in several complications in their health. Quick shift towards Telemedicine resulted in this. Several NGOs working for this helped alot in this regard by providing some sort of medical help to this patients.
Positive Aspects of Digital Health and Education
Education and Health is most important aspect of the society. Any Country should have good Education facilities and Health infrastructure for each and everyone. Government has done lots of things to make it available even for the weaker sections of the society. Ayushmann Bharat Yojana is one such initiative providing free health facility in selected hospitals for middle and poor class people all across the country.
Education and Healthcare both plays a vital role in the development of our Society and the growth of Country's Economy. With Education new generation is trained with various skills (technical, non technical and others) while Health is the most important aspect of everyones life.
At the same time, manageable advancement to be holded by government, common society and private area in to teamed up stage in this manner coming about a comprehensive development and improvement. Government, Society and Private Sector should work together and put more efforts so that these two things should be available to each and everyone even after Pandemic. There are many benefits of Digitization some of them are:-
1) Due to Cashless transaction now Educational Institutions cannot charge hefty amount of money which are unreasonable. Also Private hospitals cannot demand any amount of money for treatment. Everything ia now montinored and can be questioned with proof.
2) With digitization there is an scope of innovation in this framework which can invite more investment thus creating new job opportunities.
3) Telemedicine will make medical services available at rural areas, far north east regions where rail and road connectivity is not good enough. This will benefit lakhs of people living there.
4) Charges of online coaching classes is less compared to the offline ones. This will benefit lots of aspirants preparing for different exams by making this courses available at low price.
5) Migration of students to big cities will get reduced as best quality materials will be available online. This will save lots of time and money of this aspirants.
Way Forward
There are lots of benefit of digitization as it will reduce the cost of good quality Health and Education making it available to more number of people. But at the same time we should also think about the poor section who cannot afford adequate equipments for their children's education (smartphones, laptops etc) and access to better digital Health facilities (Telemedicine facilities) as this more costlier than traditional ones. Although Private firm provide this facility but its quite unaffordable for them. Also complex problems cannot be solved without physical examination of the patients.
Government should focus to provide this facilities in government run hospitals and clinics. This will help people of weaker sections to get access to this facilities free of cost. Also government schools should be well quipped with digital classrooms so that this childrens should not left behind. For holistic growth of our society we should make sure that no is left between. With digitization there is an scope of innovation in this sectors making it more effective and easily available. But at the same time it is our responsibility that there should be "No Digital Divide" between any sections of the society.
