CHENNAI: That the pandemic has ushered in a new normal is the understatement of the century. If that spot isn’t already occupied by ‘life is never going to be the same after this dies down’. As radical as it is for many diverse sectors to take up the work-from-home module and find out that they have much to gain from it, it is the medical fraternity embracing the digital space for consultations that holds the top spot on the list of lockdown revolutions. In these panic-induced climes where hospitals get scarier than ever for the common man, on-call medical consultations are as close as we get to a miracle cure it seems.
Ask Shaziya Naseem, mother of a four-month-old boy who fell sick after his vaccination, and she will readily agree. “Taking the kid to the clinic can give you a lot of anxiety. You have to be very cautious, you’ll wonder how safe it is to stand in the queue to wait for the doctor, you have to clean the car and take care of the clothes. So, the video-call consultation was quite a relief. I used the app Docon. Luckily, my doctor was already using it and so I get my prescriptions there. You make an online payment and get to talk to the doctor at the appointed hour, give or take a few minutes,” she explains. Her child had a fever, had runny stool and developed rashes all over his back.
As common as it is post-vaccination, it warranted a doctor’s opinion. Over the video call, she got all her queries answered and a prescription of medicines. All from the safe confines of her home. The only problem, she says, is poor network connection. You cannot have the video freeze when the doctor is giving you a diagnosis, after all. For Gautham*, a 36-year-old policeman who was already at risk of exposure to the coronavirus, such a consultation was the only option. Prone to allergies and used to a couple of standard, anti-histamine drugs, he needed help when there was a new flare-up of rashes on his feet. It was Practo that he relied on to find the right doctor and get a diagnosis. Relief came quickly, after the very first round of medicines.
Playing the bridge
Platforms like Practo, Docon and myUpchar.com have played a major role in ensuring that the transition is as seamless as it can be. While they have already been providing varying degrees of online services, they have also had to up their game to keep up with the increased demand since the start of the pandemic. Manuj Garg, co-founder of myUpchar.com, says that there has been three to five times increase in the number of people availing of their services since the country has been stuck behind closed doors over the pandemic. “We (myUpchar) create a lot of medical content in Indian languages. That is how people come to our platform. Once there, they see that there is a doctor available and reach out for a consultation. (Since the lockdown) a lot more people were reading our content and there was a huge increase in the demand for medical information too,” he explains.
To cater to this increased number of beneficiaries, doctors associated with the platform are working longer hours. “We have beefed up our medical team more since the lockdown, but it is not very straightforward to just hire a doctor because there are so few of them right now. And some of our doctors are even called into the hospital for work. There was a bit of a challenge there but the primary thing that had to happen was that we had to scale up how many people we can serve; so, everyone was working 72 to 100 per cent more than earlier,” he shares.
Besides increasing their doctor base by close to 50 per cent, Practo has launched its ‘India Health Hour’ to provide free online telemedicine solutions, through hundreds of highly experienced doctors from across the country and specialties, to patients seeking healthcare during the pandemic. It also set up a robust COVID-19 information page, a self-assessment checker for people with symptoms, and arrange for general physicians trained to handle symptom-related cases, details Dr Alexander Kuruvilla, chief health strategy officer, Practo.
Sticking to the rules
The representatives of both the platforms agree that there has been a widespread acceptance to this mode of consultation. The central government’s Telemedicine Practice Guidelines has only helped to move things forward in an organised manner it seems. “Tele-consultation has, in the past, been a grey area because there was no regulation around it and medical associations haven’t always supported it. Now, that practice guidelines has cleared the air around telemedicine and made it perfectly legal for doctors to do it. With that done, all doctors — in our experience — are very keen to get on to digital consultation. So this period has been a watershed movement for tele-consultation,” opines Manuj.
“Telemedicine is seen as the first line of defence, and it’s vital that all healthcare institutions and registered medical practitioners use this tool to help more and more people, keeping public health and safety in mind. Access, quality and affordability are three key issues facing healthcare today, and telemedicine fits in well to solve for all three. While its first usage in India dates back to a couple of decades ago, it’s really only in recent months that India has truly experienced its full potential. It replaces self-medication, helps avoid delay in professional advice and hence initiating treatment, facilitates professional medical advice at odd hours, helps avoid cross infection in waiting areas; we definitely don’t see it replacing physical consultations, but it can complement it beautifully,” says Alexander.
Not without challenges
On her part, Dr Premalatha Balachandran — gynaecologist at Fortis Malar Hospital who has recently taken to tele-consultations, agrees that this method can only stand in for frequent hospital visits. “In the long run, the frequency of consultation can be reduced with this method. Checking the lab reports and clearing doubts can be done through tele-consultations; particularly because the coronavirus is here to stay for a long time. But we need to see the patient for a physical examination, at least in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology,” she says.
So far, when required, patients are referred to the nearest clinic for tests or direct examinations. One thing everyone agrees upon is that this is bound to last way past the lockdown. “There will be many forces at play. I do expect that it (tele-consultations) will come down a little but it will definitely be higher than where it was pre-lockdown. My guess is that it’s here to stay,” shares Manuj. We’ll know soon enough, won’t we? *Name changed