This appeared last week:
'Digital divide': 2.5 million Australians isolated with no internet connection
March 27, 2020 — 10.05am
A coalition of major community organisations has called for urgent efforts to help the 2.5 million Australians not connected to the internet as the country turns to online education, remote work and telehealth during the COVID-19 crisis.
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Australian Council of Social Service, Choice, Anglicare, Smith Family and almost 30 other groups have written to Communications Minister Paul Fletcher warning people without internet connections and technology face an "alarming escalation of the digital divide".
Praising the economic support packages announced by the government so far, the groups said more was needed for the many low income and remote households "who will remain isolated and struggle in these circumstances due to barriers in accessing communications services and equipment".
The pre-existing problem is heightened during the pandemic, the groups warned, hindering access to government services, children trying to undertake online education and people needing access to telehealth services.
The coalition called for "targeted low-cost broadband" connections for eligible households, a relief package of basic telecommunications equipment and a telephone service for people with low digital literacy.
They also urged the government to work with telcos on ensuring customers' ongoing access to adequate data, preventing disconnections during the crisis, suspending late fees and debt collection, addressing outages in remote communities and helping Telstra make their wifi-enabled payphones free.
More here:
As suggested, one can only suspect that this figure will rise as so many are loosing their job and will be lucky to be able to keep a phone with minimal data, let alone a fixed home internet connection that is needed for many activities.
We are in pretty difficult times.
David.
From the same inept people who brought us My Health Record......
ReplyDeleteTelehealth on path to rip govt’s COVID plans (and general practice) asunder
http://medicalrepublic.com.au/telehealth-on-path-to-rip-govts-covid-plans-asunder/27025
The quote of the century:
"Telehealth is far more complex than the government has calculated. According to experts, this is probably because the government didn’t really listen that carefully to telehealth lobbyists in the past about how they should and could introduce it to our healthcare system."
The reminder is there at the top of David's blog
H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
Strange how the once the NBN and PCEHR shared so much promise and I believe eHealth was 30% of the benefits case way back.
ReplyDeleteOn Telehealth, funny how so much has been forgotten or ignore by so few, who are funded through the many.
https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ehealth-nbntelehealth-pilots
Don’t forget these same inept folks have no moral compass when doing this BAU activity - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/08/melbourne-professor-quits-after-health-department-pressures-her-over-data-breach
ReplyDeleteThere are fundamental issues to be resolved outside clinal, data and technology layers of interoperability. Every time this happens the public looses a little more faith and trust in health IT advocates.