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Access to health: – exploring telemedicine in humanitarian settings

The Norwegian Red Cross has a strategic objective to strengthen access to health, particularly for the most vulnerable populations affected by conflict, crisis, and climate change.

Globally, many of the populations the Norwegian Red Cross work with lack physical access to health for a variety of reasons, such as armed conflict, insecurity, extreme weather, or climatic shocks, weakened infrastructure or geographical remoteness.

As longstanding partners, DNV and the Norwegian Red Cross work together to share skills and expertise with each other.

This year's collaborative project has focused on understanding the feasibility of using telemedicine in humanitarian settings to support health outcomes. This has included conducting a review of some global examples of telemedicine and developing a framework to manage technical risks when supporting implementations of telemedicine, working closely with a pilot project in Colombia supported by the Norwegian Red Cross.

Colombia: Pregnant women travel for hours to give birth

For many pregnant women in Colombia, health care is very limited. They live far away from medical care, hospitals, and medicines. In addition, the journey can be expensive and dangerous.

Bilde av dame foran landsby
Mirian is a mother of seven. She says that it is difficult for pregnant women in the village to get medical attention.

Mirian lives in a small village along the Chagüi riverbed. The village is located in an area controlled by armed groups.

– Pregnant women can visit a health post here in the village, which will refer them on to the doctor at the hospital in the nearest town. But it can be difficult to get there, says Mirian.

The journey from the village to the hospital is long, expensive and can be dangerous. It takes several hours by boat along the river.

Picture Riverbed
The only way to reach the village is hours by boat up the riverbed

The village health post and the use of telemedicine

To ensure better health care for pregnant women in the villages, the Norwegian Red Cross, with partners, is now working to educate and train healthcare workers, and to improve access to internet at the health posts.

This will make it easier to contact the hospitals for advice in more acute cases and contribute to more pregnant women in Colombia receiving better follow-up before, during and after birth.

Valuable partnership with DNV

DNV’s expertise on digital health, risk management and innovation has been valuable to help the Norwegian Red Cross explore the feasibility of using telemedicine in humanitarian settings. 

– The support that we get from DNV has been crucial to strengthen the project that saves lives here in Colombia, says Kaja Sannerud Andersen, Country Manager for the Norwegian Red Cross in Colombia.

Kaja Sannerud Andersen, Country Manager for the Norwegian Red Cross in Colombia
Kaja Sannerud Andersen, Country Manager for the Norwegian Red Cross in Colombia.

– The collaboration with DNV is very special, because we not only get financial support, but also technical support, she continues. For us, this is a very good example of a collaboration that goes beyond donations, and where we can also benefit from the expertise in DNV at a global level.

The humanitarian situation in Colombia

  • Thousands of people in Colombia still live in areas heavily affected by armed conflict, despite the peace agreement from 2016. The humanitarian work is crucial.
  • The violence resulting from armed conflict affects the physical and mental health of communities in Colombia, and particularly in the rural areas of the country. The violence involves threats, physical violence, death, sexual violence, the use of explosives and other types of violence.
  • Healthcare workers are particularly exposed to violent acts, and this prevents local communities from getting the healthcare they need.