Telangana call centre offers COVID consultations, counselling

The Telangana government has set up a call centre to provide counselling and care instructions to COVID-19 patients, both asymptomatic/ pre-symptomatic and isolation cases. Telemedicine consultation for mildly symptomatic patients undergoing treatment at home is also being provided. Working in two shifts, the call centre has the capacity to handle 10,000 calls a day.

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has set up a dedicated call centre to provide counselling and care instructions to COVID-19 patients, both asymptomatic/ pre-symptomatic and isolation cases.

Experts from the call centre are doing a follow-up on a day to day basis up to 17 days in normal circumstances, the Health Department said on Friday.

Officials said telemedicine consultation for mildly symptomatic patients undergoing treatment at home is also being provided.

Working in two shifts, the call centre has the capacity to handle 10,000 calls a day.

Distress management, through 24x7 inbound calls, is also being addressed. Emergency management through 108 linkup and transfer facility to the hospital is also being provided.

The inbound call centre is a 20-seater emergency care centre (1800 599 4455) working in three shifts with an enhanced capacity to handle up to 1,500 calls daily. The telemedicine call centre attends to 1,000 calls daily and provides information to around 10,000 COVID patients who are under home isolation.

The call centre tells them about precautions to be taken, provides information about a balanced diet besides enquiring about their health conditions as well as providing timely advice and suggestions.

The Health Department said that in order to further scale up the operations, the 104 call centre is being upgraded and it will have dedicated 75 seats identified for outbound calls.

Dedicated trained professionals comprising 200 tele callers and 75 doctors are being deployed. Quality monitoring teams with a built-up capacity to handle up to 20,000 follow up calls and distress calls is also being set up in the state, it said.

Telangana has so far reported 30,946 COVID-19 cases including 331 deaths. Officials said 12,423 patients were undergoing treatment either in hospitals or at home.

IANS