Voice over IP

Here's an interesting trial from the land of flying doctors, Australia, to support pediatric cancer fighters and carers at home by using video telephones.

I know how important VoIP is now being to us to be able to stay in touch and to make sure everything is ok during, for example, hospital visits. Thus later this morning I wilI phone Nanda at the hospital on her mobile from my computer using Skype to ensure they will be able to get home in time to pick up Jaime from school. If something is wrong, I can then get in touch with the school, the social worker etc to sort something out. All at minimal cost.

Unfortunately, Nanda has not yet got a grasp on Skype on the laptop Talia gave us and that is in the U.K. so we cannot yet video chat for free. But I will be sorting this out on my next visit.

I would have preferred to use WengoPhone as it supports video on Linux (which Skype doesn't, only on Windows!) and is open source (which Skype isn't). But for various technical reasons it's not working for me. When our U.K. video Skype is working, I'll just have to boot into Windows (yuk!).

Update 13:00: Kezia went to hospital with a fever. Now her line is blocked or dislodged so they cannot yet give her a blood transfusion. Awaiting an X-ray. Have had to arrange to get Jaime picked up from school and potential childcare over the weekend. Thanks M. Rung the school and hospital. Will ring back later.

Update 15:30: they managed to clean the line and she is now having the transfusion. The nurse tells me Kezia's doing fine. But it looks like they will have to stay over the weekend.

Thank you to the inventors of VoIP!