BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has set up eight help desks at all the dedicated Covid hospitals in the city to provide information of patients to their kin. Executives of the desks have made 10,471 calls in the last five days.
The help desks, which started functioning on May 18, are working in two shifts from 8 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 8 pm. Each help desk shift is led by a doctor who guides the executives in deciphering the health status data provided by the hospitals so that the latter can explain to the kin of the Covid patients in a better way.
While four help desk executives are working in each shift at SUM, Hi-Tech and KIMS Covid Hospitals along with a doctor, two executives in each shift are working along with a doctor at Aditya Ashwini, Blue Wheel, Neelachal, Sparsh and KIDS hospitals. At present, 16 doctors and 44 executives have been deployed and the number may go up depending on the requirements.Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) is managing and monitoring the functioning of the facilities.
BMC Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh said, “We always wanted an effective information dissemination system on health status of the patients admitted to DCHs. The help desk executives could create a link between the family members and the Covid hospitals across the city during this difficult time.”