Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

MedShr, a free medical app that allows doctors to discuss medical problems, is becoming a valuable tool for doctors in migrant camps

The refugee crisis in Europe has one of the defining news events of 2015 as nearly a million people have fled the chaos of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to cross into Europe.

While numbers are beginning to fall as winter starts to bite, the conditions in the migrant camps across Europe are now of immediate concern to authorities and health care providers. While there is huge concerted effort to improve the generally appalling conditions in these camps, progress is slow because of the scale of the task and providing significant numbers of doctors there.

One free medical app MedShr is attempting to address these challenges by enabling doctors to upload, share and discuss medical images on a closed professional network. In camps where conditions are poor, it is proving to be a valuable tool for doctors in the camps.

MedShr was founded in 2013 with a UK DTI Research and Development grant by Dr Asif Qasim, a London cardiologist and clinical director of an NHS Trust. The mission was to create a platform for doctors to connect with each other and discuss clinical cases in a secure place.

"Case discussion is at the heart of how doctors learn, from medical school through to consultants and specialist surgeons. Talking about cases is critical to the way we share knowledge.

"We started online case discussion several years ago at a time when cardiologists were still posting CDs of coronary angiograms and scans to one another. We built a web platform that allowed doctors to upload, share and discuss images as part of a secure professional network. There was a fantastic response and developing MedShr was the next step," said Dr Qasim.

As the refugee crisis has deepened, medical apps such as MedShr at the camps have become more important. By connecting specialists with support, diagnoses and treatment, it has been working with organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and The Red Cross to work out how to support doctors in the field and contact informal groups of volunteer doctors.

A recent University of Birmingham report, supported by Doctors of the World (Médicins du Monde) and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) at the Calais migrant camp underlines how appalling living conditions are there.

It says that conditions in the camp do not meet standards recommended by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and that 'the shortcoming in shelter, food and water safety, personal hygiene, sanitation and security would have detrimental long-term health consequences for the camp's residents over their lifetime'.

Apps such as MedShr are among a number of apps that people and organisations are developing to help with the crisis. These range from language courses, latest information on residency regulations to fundraising and donations.

Recent efforts by London-based Techfugees to create hackathons and for people to work collaboratively have also helped to offer solutions to solve the refugee problem. A German-based app Refugermany also offers advice on living in Germany, housing and how to open a bank account.

As 2015 comes to an end, the prospects of opening a bank account for the hundreds of thousands of people stranded in migrant camps around Europe would appear remote. More immediately it is their health that matters and it is platforms such as MedShr that offer them hope that things may change in 2016.