R>The HealthLine Service, implemented in cooperation with the Telemedicine Reference Center Limited, is a 24-hour Medical Call Center manned by Licensed Physicians and accessible to all Grameenphone subscribers. It can be reached by dialing 789 from any GP number.
The HealthLine Service was nominated for the GSMA Award '07 in the "Best Use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development" category. Other nominees for this award category are the International Trade Center UNCTAD/WTO for "Trade at Hand", Dialog Telecom Ltd. of Sri Lanka for its "Disaster and Emergency Warning Network", Nokia for the "Implementation of DTAC's Happy prepaid service in Thailand", and China Mobile for its "Village Connected Project".
The award will be announced during the upcoming 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 12, 2007. Founded in 1987, The GSM Association (GSMA) is a global trade association representing more than 700 GSM mobile phone operators across 217 territories and countries of the world. In addition, more than 180 manufacturers and suppliers support the Association's initiatives as associate members. The Association's members serve more than 2 billion customers - over 82% of the world's mobile phone users.
The HealthLine Service is an interactive teleconference between a GP caller seeking health-related advice or consultation and a licensed physician who is be available on a 24 hours a day and 7 days a week basis, to receive the calls. This effort of GrameenPhone is primarily intended to enhance the health consciousness of an individual by making a few categories of health information and medical services readily available to him over a phone call.
Some of the services initially available under this program include: Information on Doctor and Medical Facilities; Information on Drug or Pharmacy; Information on Laboratory Test Report (interpretation); Medical Advice/ Consultation from Doctor (for registered subscribers); and Help and advice during Medical Emergency.
Moreover, a caller who would register himself for the service would get consultation and treatment advice over telephone from a licensed physician for both emergency and non-emergency situations. Registration is not mandatory for other services. Calls to HealthLine number 789 will be charged at Tk 15 for the first 3 minutes and at the rate of Tk 5/minute for the following minutes. GP subscribers seeking to register for the online consultation service will have to pay a one-time application processing fee (Tk 200 only) and an annual membership fee of Tk 300 only.
Grameenphone was earlier awarded the prestigious "GSM in the Community Award" in February 2000 for its internationally acclaimed Village Phone Program, which provides Universal Access to telephone services in remote, rural areas. Administered in cooperation with Grameen Telecom, the Village Phone Program also enables the VP operators, mostly poor village women, to make a decent income while retailing the service to their fellow villagers. Presently, there are some 300,000 Village Phones in operation around the country.