Sierra Leone link to India medics

Healthcare in Sierra Leone is poorly resourced

Sierra Leone's president has launched a satellite link-up so that doctors in his country can seek advice from their colleagues in India.

The system, known as telemedicine, will enable doctors in Sierra Leone to send X-rays and other data for analysis in better-equipped Indian hospitals.

They will also be able to seek second opinions from India.

Sierra Leone's healthcare system was badly damaged during the 11 years of civil war that ended in 2002.

Many doctors fled the country.

"We look forward to realising the benefits that this connection will create in the medical sector," President Ernest Bai Koroma said at the telemedicine launch at Connaught Hospital in the capital, Freetown.

The initiative, funded by the Indian government, is part of a broader pan-African telemedicine plan.

Dr Thaim Boya Kamara, Sierra Leone's national hospital care manager, said it would be useful not just for connecting Freetown to India, but for communicating with rural areas.

"When this extends to the districts and other provinces, we'll be able to be in contact with our own doctors and healthcare workers," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.