About Virtual Hospital

Virtual Hospital seeks to ensure that the benefits of modern medicine are available to all people and that the poor are not deprived of medical treatment for want of money, or a lack of access to effective healthcare.

More than 10 million children die each year, most from preventable causes and almost all in poor countries. Six countries account for 50% of worldwide deaths in children younger than 5 years, these include India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These deaths are preventable, but in many poor countries basic healthcare remains financially and often physically out of reach for millions of people.

Virtual Hospital was founded by Khalid Dar in late 2011, after a visit to a government hospital in Lahore revealed a shocking lack of effective healthcare for the poor.  During his visit he witnessed the death of a five a year old child from dehydration, an easily treatable illness, simply because the mother could not afford the required fare to take the child to a doctor.   Two weeks later, on his return to the UK, his own child was born with a very serious illness.  He was treated by a specialist team at Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the best children’s hospitals in the world.  This huge contrast in the level of care provided to the poor in Lahore and the excellent level of care provided to his son in London resulted in the idea of Virtual Hospital being born.

The Virtual Hospital mission is to seek to ensure that the benefits of modern medicine are available to all people and that the poor and disadvantaged are not deprived of effective and quality healthcare for want of money, or a lack of access to doctors.

Virtual Hospital represents a significant opportunity to change the way that medical care is delivered to the world’s poorest people. Each third world village will be able to seek diagnosis and treatment by doctors sitting in GP surgeries, or hospitals across the world using Telemedicine video conferencing services, telephone consultations, or email store and forward diagnosis.

Virtual Hospital has identified and developed a healthcare business model which is capable of bringing affordable, life-changing products and services to the parts of the world where they are most needed. Our service is focused on delivering accessible and essential medical care, through innovative, market-oriented approaches involving telemedicine.

Virtual Hospital seeks to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital combined with the effective use of information technology, can build thriving telemedicine health centres in existing hospitals and villages that serve vast numbers of the poor irrespective of their location, or inability to pay. As a result Virtual Hospital has developed a scalable telemedicine project which will allow the poor to access essential free healthcare services in rural and semi rural areas within the third world simply by using a computer, webcam and internet connection. With the implementation of 3G the service will be available on mobile phones.

Khalid comments that “It is heartening to see that the idea conceived not so long ago, has received such commitment from so many people.  The credit for bringing the idea of Virtual Hospital to fruition lies in particular with the many people who have shared their knowledge and expertise with me in developing this project.

The global medical community can be a source of great strength for the poor and I believe that if we all come together to collectively use our medical and technological expertise we can bring significant and positive change to those people who have no access to doctors or even the most basic of healthcare services”.