BENGALURU: Thirty lines. 30 employees. 20,000+ calls per day. No wonder the COVID-19 helpline 1912 has been of little help to the distressed public of Bengaluru. Those who have tried and tested this emergency response line swear that it is almost always engaged, and if you do get your call in edgeways and get connected to your BBMP zone, you could wait forever for a response.
Or your call could drop. 1912 is the most important number for those on a hospital bed hunt, but four weeks into the second wave with its sharp spurt of cases, the number of lines has fallen woefully short. It has also come to light that this has been the only number for information on everything from hospital accommodation, oxygen beds, ICU to ventilators, and it is only now that the calls are hived off to BBMP zones.
Swamped with calls, BBMP increased the number to 60 lines just ten days ago, and again added 50 more lines. It is now planning to increase the number of lines to 250 and hire call centre staffers to man them. As one angry Bengalurean questioned, "Did it need scores of people to die to wake up the system, why was it not done a month ago? Is Bengaluru Development portfolio not with the CM?"
N Raghavendra, a volunteer, declared the number "useless". "In two cases, this lethargy and delay has resulted in the death of patients. One was 45-year-old Srinath whose relatives dialled this number to get a bed when his oxygen saturation level was around 80, and got a call about 48 hours later from Victoria, he said.
"Just 30 minutes after they admitted him, they got information that he had died. Another patient, 32-year-old Shabari needed a ventilator bed, but the call centre delayed a call back, and he passed away. How can this qualify as an emergency response service?" he asked
In another case, call centre officials took details and called back 24 hours later. Dr Sunil, a private medical practitioner, told The New Indian Express, "I dialled this number around 1.30 am, seeking a bed for a seriously-ill patient, aged about 60. Three hospitals refused him and he got a bed after nine hours."
"There should have been about 100 lines from the beginning. These are signs of a flailing state," said retired IAS officer TR Raghunandan.
Advocate KV Dhananjay, who has been crusading against corruption, said, "Those who have suffered can sue the government. I will take it up as a legal issue. There are around 250 hospitals, and each hospital needs two numbers, so there should be 500 lines."