I think we concentrate too much on healthcare options for adults in Nigeria without exploring options for ped patients. Options for children should be considered too if only for the important fact that kids develop their own feelings about their own medical experience.

For instance, we all know that whenever a child sees a nurse, the child is put off.  

When we discuss procedures or a diagnosis to an adult patient, we can use the voice of reasoning to make them understand outcomes. In fact, you can pool everyone together and talk to them all at once and everyone goes home happy. But for the kids? There are peculiarities – many of them.

Children are special kinds of beings. With children, you are explaining in one manner to the parents and adopting a different ball to explain the same thing to the pediatric patient. And not just in plain words. You’d have to use another language entirely so things don’t go messy.

And did I also mention you may be needing the babysitting skills set. Yes. Your ‘friend’ is already afraid of your uniform and the entire hospital environment wrenches his gut.

Therefore, it’s high time, we begin to look at available options so kids can access medical care with fun.

Children Respond Better to Doctors via Telemedicine Channels.

Telemedicine is the most preferable option for kids, according to this research which found out that children responded better to therapists on a telehealth screen than face to face.

This is keenly because telemedicine is delivered through a technology they already love – phone or videoconferencing systems. You can read about the benefits of telemedicine in Nigeria.

This also translates that many private and public healthcare providers should immediately expand their health programmes to accommodate telemedicine too.

For example, a child who has been traumatized and suffer from anxiety may find it difficult to speak in a traditional office visit.

But it is easier for him to talk to a psychiatrist virtually and from the comfort of his home, surrounded only by his loved ones and friends. He’d see the care giver as a friend who is trying to help him. What this also means is that with telemedicine, his family saves time and money travelling just to see a doctor, which definitely takes him out of school.

In truth, telemedicine is an important tool that can help overcome hospital fright in children. Besides equitable healthcare is about meeting patients where they are and helping them heal soonest.

In child healthcare, words are king. Words can help kids have the best or worst possible medical outcome. Telemedicine remains the best option to help a child get healthcare with fun. A health provider can give a child 101% attention, listening to all the child’s problems even if the child is lisping.

This is unlike the traditional office visit where care givers are always in hurry.

All you need do is use that same smart phone in your hand and access quality medical care from wherever you are.