A year ago, working closely with our Zambian Government District Health partners, we surveyed over 100 clinical staff at the frontline of the rural healthcare facilities that we support to determine what we could do to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in their communities. This assessment informed our COVID-19 response going forward. We equipped over 200 healthcare facilities with WASH Covid prevention kits, (a major logistical undertaking) thanks to the generosity of our many supporters. We have also increased the amount of Ministry of Health approved information and guidelines on the prevention and management of Covid-19 in a rural setting for our clinical users to help them stay safe and to keep non-infected patients safe.

Nearly a year on, the pandemic has become a much bigger and longer-term issue: with the presence of new strains in the country, infection and mortality rates have seen a marked increase in sub-Saharan Africa and the counties we operate, as witnessed by our volunteer doctors via the patient cases they consult on from these rural communities.

This has prompted us to support our Ministry of Health partners by conducting another comprehensive assessment of the status quo of sanitation and education resources of the sites we support. This is required in order to help us understand what additional support is required to help stop the spread of the deadly new strain of the virus.

Watch this space.

In the Field

Our telemedicine service is the definition of virtual; however it requires many in-person interactions such as training behind the scenes. Adjusting to social distancing restrictions, we have successfully pivoted these towards virtual as well:

On 20 January our Field Team held our First Quality Metrics Assessment Meeting for Clinical Care Officers, our service users’ supervisors. The objective was to review and analyse usage performance in order to improve service delivery going forward.

This was a long-awaited gathering in lieu of the in-person Kick-Off cancelled by the onset of Covid, and it was well received. We are all looking forward to its impact and the next session in June.  


Episode 4 of our Virtual Healthcare Show and Tell was our best yet in a series that has been going from strength to strength with every issue.

Our service users have been making this their platform to communicate with each other across the geographical divide that has only been made deeper with Covid restriction. We are proud to provide them with a peer community giving further support.

Ep4 stars Muntanga Chimooka, Clinical Officer at Simwatachela Rural Health Center (RHC) in Zimba District, who will be sharing how he managed the case after consultation from the Virtual Doctors. Watch it here:

Volunteer Update

Early January our indefatigable Volunteer Virtual Doctors joined our very first Virtual Health Conference for an overview (for newcomers) and update (for the veterans) from VDRs Founder & Executive Director Huw Jones and Volunteer Medical Director Dr Daniel Grace.

We would like to take this opportunity to emphasise how grateful we are for our medical volunteers to be donating their precious time on top of their heavy shifts on the frontline. Telemedicine is increasingly essential and the Virtual Doctors could not offer this service to those who need it desperately without the vital input of our volunteers.

2021 has not started as well as we hoped but you, our Virtual Doctors, can be relied on at home and in Zambia and Malawi as well. Want to become a Volunteer Doctor?

In other news: some of you may already know volunteer Virtual Doctor Ian Cross.
Last December we caught up with him after one of his rotations in Zambia, experiencing the user end of our telemedicine service! Read on.

Your support is needed now more than ever

The coveted London Marathon ballot results have been received this week. If you've been unsuccessful or fancy a slightly smaller-scale London race we have places for the Royal Parks Half-Marathon on 10 October. £30 will secure the place and the fundraising target is a minimum of £300. Contact the office.

Roundups is an app that links with your card to round up all of your transactions and donate pennies as you spend. You can choose to round up to 10p, 50p, or £1 and set a weekly cap and pause donations at any time - slow and steady, an easy and low-key way to support our work!
Find more casual fundraising hacks on our Click & Fund page.

If you’re following cryptocurrency news, you will have heard of their current surge in value – in particular Bitcoin after Tesla declared its $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin purchase (yesterday it reached $50,000). Did you know the Virtual Doctors take Bitcoin donations and were the first UK charity to do so?

STOP PRESS

Thank you Dr Daniel Grace, our multi-talented Volunteer Medical Director, for putting together this short film telling the VDrs story for our WHO Health For All Film Festival entry. Wish us luck!

Want more information?

Our latest donor report is now available - see our website for a downloadable version

About: the Virtual Doctors provides sophisticated, yet easy to use bespoke telemedicine app and smartphones with internet access. This empowers health workers in rural Africa by enabling them to send electronic patient files to volunteer doctors for diagnosis and treatment advice. See more about what we do.