BHUBANESWAR : When Tapas Mohapatra, an Odia engineer with Indian Oil at Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh, tested positive last month, he chose to remain in home isolation as his symptoms were mild. Some days into isolation, though, he began facing breathing issues and wanted to be shifted to Covid hospital.
However, with no access to the district helplines, Tapas put up an SOS message on Twitter which caught the attention of an activist William Stanley and Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka in Odisha.
They took up his case and contacted the local authorities. Within a few hours, Tapas was admitted to the hospital. He has now recovered, thanks to Stanley and Ulaka who were complete strangers to him till the incident unfolded.
This is not the lone incident. Odias across the State and outside have turned to social media to amplify distress calls and source help for people, be it the Covid infected or the migrants.
While many are using Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp to help people in distress, there are several others who have crowdsourced lists of resources from across social media platforms and verified them for convenience of people in times of urgent need.
And these resources have come in handy in saving many lives.
Lipsa Bharati, an education activist and IIT-Bhubaneswar alumnus, along with her friend Anushri Saxena, a Clinton Health Fellow who is posted in Kalahandi, felt the need for a common group that can bring together resources for Covid help when they both recovered from Covid-19.
Both Lipsa and Anushri formed a WhatsApp group - Odisha Covid Response - on April 21. Today, volunteers, NGO activists who are already working with the government, politicians and army personnel from across the State are members of the group which receives hundreds of patient enquiries daily. And a majority of them are addressed.
The team has also created an unified accessible platform (covidresourcesodisha.carrd.co) to provide leads on Covid-19 help to infected people.
“The purpose is to ensure that all the information scattered across various social media platforms is organised methodically in one place, accessible to all and easy to find at times of need”, said Lipsa.
The platform provides information on availability of beds, ventilators, medical supplies, oxygen services, plasma or blood donation, Covid testing, telemedicine services and mental health counselling.
A Right to Food activist Sameet Panda, who has brought back several migrants to Odisha from different Southern Indian States since the second wave of Covid-19 hit, says social media is helpful both in terms of getting to know about people in distress as well as connecting to officials or persons concerned who can help them.
Few days back Sameet through a local volunteer received information about a woman of Ganjam who was found infected and had low oxygen level.
“I put up her case on Twitter and tagged the authorities concerned for administrative support and also circulated her details on WhatsApp groups. Within a day, the woman was brought to the SCB MCH Covid Hospital at Cuttack where she is under treatment now”, he said, adding that while Twitter makes it easier to connect with officials, WhatsApp groups are flooded with information about oxygen suppliers, availability of hospital beds, remdesivir and food supply.
Aditya Kumar Nag, another volunteer seconds the view.
He said at a time when the entire system is overworking to win the fight against Covid-19, social media has become a vital tool to amplify distress calls from patients and their relatives and connecting them with relevant persons.
Aditya has for over last one month been facilitating help to the patients by arranging oxygen cylinders or getting them beds in Covid hospitals across the State through Twitter and WhatsApp. He has also facilitated counselling for anxious infected patients in home isolation.