HYDERABAD: Twitter has become the Covid-19 ‘war room’ for residents of Hyderabad desperately seeking hospital beds, oxygen and any other medical help, as no such centre has been set up by the GHMC, on the lines of those in Bengaluru or Mumbai.
Cries of help from people in Hyderabad — mostly seeking details of hospitals that have vacant beds with oxygen facility or regarding availability of ventilators — flood Twitter everyday, which is abuzz with such messages even during late nights or the wee hours. While the State government claims to have started a website to display ‘real-time’ bed availability, the data is far from reliable, forcing residents to seek help on Twitter or put up statuses seeking help on other platforms like WhatsApp.
As a result, several volunteer groups have cropped up, who keep calling hospitals and keep a tab on the availability of beds, and Tweet the status of the same, along with the time stamp of when the data was collected.
Dr Sanjeev Singh Yadav, vice president of Indian Medical Association, Telangana, stressed the need to constitute a committee with representatives from various sectors. “There must be a monitoring committee involving government officials, medical experts and representatives of nursing homes and private hospitals. There must also be a hotline that people can reach out to for any help, including bed availability.”
He further said, “The available bed strength is not being utilised properly. There are cases of beds being unnecessarily occupied by people who do not require that level of care. In fact, the government must clearly come out with a policy for utilisation of the entire bed strength for Covid care.”
Dr K Mahesh Kumar, president of the Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association, said, “There is an immediate necessity for the government to set up a war room with doctors and administrators. Nodal officers must be allocated to oversee everything — availability and occupancy of beds, availability of oxygen, essential drugs, infrastructure, PPE kits in government hospitals and even testing. There must be a concrete policy on bed allotments, a nodal officer who can be contacted by hospitals for oxygen availability and surprise inspections of hospitals must be regularly conducted. All this is definitely possible, if there is political will.”
Citizens forced to fend for themselves
While the State government claims to have started a website to display ‘real-time’ bed availability, the data is far from reliable, forcing residents to seek help on Twitter or put up statuses seeking help on other platforms like WhatsApp