Bhubaneswar: With an objective to attend more and more calls from citizens seeking advice for Covid-19 patients and not let a single home isolation patient’s queries unattended, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has chalked out a strategy to improve the capacity of its 1929 Call Centre, which has been operating round-the-clock at the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre (BOC) of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) office.
In this regard, a coordination meeting was held via video conferencing at BDA Conference Hall between senior officials managing 1929 and 104 helpline numbers on how to boost incoming, outgoing calls in order to reach out as many as Covid positive patients or people seeking help and advice in light of the aggressive second wave of Covid-19.
The meeting was attended by BMC Commissioner, Shri Prem Chandra Chaudhary, COVID observers for Bhubaneswar City, Principal Secretary, Water Resources and WCD Department, Smt. Anu Garg and Labour Commissioner Dr N Thirumala Naik, Secretary, Electronic and Information Technology Department, Shri Manoj Kumar Mishra along with other senior officials in charge of 1921 and 104 helplines.
In the meeting it was decided that some outgoing calls will be managed by 104 Call Centre in the coming days as there is an exponential rise in the daily call number by citizens to 1929 helpline.
“The 1929 helpline number is a single point solution to issues related to coronavirus and has been successfully addressing all queries of Covid positive patients of Bhubaneswar. The capacity of the helpline will be further increased soon in coordination with 104 in order to help more people and reduce the waiting time during this challenging,” said Smt. Garg, who had visited 1929 Call Centre in BOC in April 19.
Speaking about the plan, the BMC Commissioner said: “Our purpose is to reach out every covid positive patient and those are under home isolation who are seeking advice regarding doctor’s consultation, shifting, arranging ambulances, home isolation monitoring, counselling and mental well-being etc. with the help of 104 helpline in the coming days.”
For better coordination and management, a WhatsApp group has been created having officers and staff of 1929 and 104 helplines as members to deal with the situation.
The 1929 Call Centre for COVID-19 which was functional on March 25 has received 7282 calls, 12518 outgoing calls and 1825 doctor’s consultations as on April 26.
The 1929 Call Centre was started to handle the following type of calls:
• Request for medical shifting
• Request for shifting to Covid Care Centres
• Request for doctors’ consultation
• request for medicines or other help
• Regarding Vaccination
• Regarding treatment at Hospitals
• Regarding Covid Testing centres
• Discharge Certificate
• Information regarding Dead body cremation
• Death Certificate
• Outside district patients requesting for admission
The Call Centre is working round-the-clock in three shifts – from 6 AM to 2 PM, 2 PM to 10 PM and 10 PM to 6 AM everyday with 38 call executives, 7 doctors, 6 BSCL staff as Supervising Officers, 8 incoming and 6 outgoing workstations.