Successful test of Video Conferencing

Note from Ray:

On three occasions this week, we have successfully linked with a video conference between Jos and the Montana Tech campus in Butte. Thanks to the great efforts of the technical team in Butte (Mike, Gary & Eric) and Dr. Sam here in Jos, not only were the tests successful, but they exceeded our expectations. The quality of the video conferencing was outstanding. We accomplished this through a satellite link running at a bandwidth of 512k, but we believe that we can conference at a bandwidth of 384k and still have very acceptable video quality. For our last and final test, everyone from the Safe Passages training was there for the test. When the link with Montana occurred, there was a roar of cheers from everyone in the room. The hope that this technology brings to improving healthcare in Nigeria and other parts of the developing world is beyond words that I can express. Now that we have proven that we can connect and deliver high quality video conferencing on a regular basis, we can begin to deliver real-time training to the physician residents and midwifery students here in Jos. Instead of waiting years for best practices to filter down to these areas, we can now begin to teach these best practices on an on-going, regular basis. This is, after all, not about the technology. This is about saving mothers and babies. The technology just makes it become a reality.

On another note, I was fortunate yesterday to visit some small villages outside of Jos. At one of the villages, named Bomo, we met with the staff of a small clinic and then visited with the teachers and students at the village school. The kids loved the soccer ball we left with them. Seeing this village gave me a real sense of the challenges of providing health care in Nigeria.