BHUBANESWAR: "Telemedicine! ha ha ha!" was what a head of a super specialty department (HoD) of SCB Medical College and Hospital encountered, when he answered the mobile phone in the dead of the night, a few days back.
He had picked up the call in anticipation of an emergency in his department but was shocked by the crankiness of the caller and the frivolousness of the reason. "Was checking if the telemedicine service is working or not," the caller apparently told the doctor.
Another HoD went through almost the same experience with a person calling up and saying, Telemedicine, Mora poduchi (I am having a burning sensation)."
Obviously, a mischievous midnight call. But, the rattled professor is now bent upon deleting all unsaved and unnamed numbers from his phone while not picking any unknown number in the night, even though it may be from a genuine patient of his.
As COVID-19 pandemic has forced severe curtailment of regular health services and promotion of telemedicine to ensure timely medical attention to needy people, the flip side has also come along, adding more stress to the already beleaguered medical professionals.
Across departments, HoDs and senior faculty are almost wringing their hair in exasperation, having to deal with inane calls day and night. The non-clinical wings are not spared either.
The SCBMCH was, in fact, the first in State to start teleconsultations services at the start of the coronavirus spread in April. But the deluge of misdirected calls has aggravated after the State Government announced activation of telemedicine as a major mode of medical consultation by restricting OPDs and normal functions in hospitals this month.
As per the SOP issued by the Health department, the hospitals have issued dedicated telemedicine phone numbers. A caller on the number is to be attended by a responder who should forward those to the specialty doctor concerned.
Every department of SCBMCH has deputed two doctors for teleconsultation. However, the responders in many cases are giving the number of the deputed doctors directly to the caller without forwarding the call to the specialist concerned. As a consequence, the doctor is flooded with direct calls bypassing the telemedicine network.
In case of HoDs, professors and senior faculty, hospital sources said, the phone and mail directory of the SCBMCH has been leaked on social media and is going around as officially assigned HoD numbers for telemedicine consultation.Thus, in the midst of treating patients and managing their departments in these testing times, the hassles of attending to frivolous calls frequently has become too much for the department heads.
"What can we do apart from suffering the insufferable. We cannot even change our numbers," said a Professor and HoD of a super specialty department. Nodal officer of Temedicine, SCBMCH, Prof MR Patnaik, who is the HoD of Pulmonary Medicine, himself has been a victim of the unwanted development.
"In the midst of discharging duties in my department, telemedicine and COVID-19 management of which I am also the nodal officer, I am flooded with numerous unnecessary and unrelated calls. The numbers have been circulated on social media. We appeal to people to only approach through designated telemedicine numbers and not directly," he pleaded.