Mobile phones used to aid medical services in Tanzania

CNN’s Marketplace Africa offers viewers a unique window into African business on and off the continent. This week it takes a look at how mobile banking is changing business and saving lives.

(CNN) — In a clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Dr. Robert Marenga employs an unusual but invaluable tool in his bid to treat patients: his mobile phone.

The surgeon is taking advantage of a growing mobile-banking industry, using his cell phone to send money via SMS to Tanzanian women suffering from fistula — a highly-stigmatized condition that women can develop after a long, traumatic childbirth without proper medical care.

The money is used to pay for a patient’s bus ticket — helping them travel from rural areas to Dar es Salaam, one of the few places where corrective surgeries are performed.

Marenga says the practice is helping transform the lives of many women who, unable to afford treatment, become outcasts in their communities…[continue reading]