At 1.40 p.m. on Tuesday, a volunteer at Cyberabad COVID control room received a call for an ambulance to shift a 66-year-old COVID patient to a hospital.
The ambulance reached the patient by 1.55 p.m., and she was shifted to State-run Nature Cure Hospital, Begumpet, in another 30 minutes.
In another emergency, an elderly couple was shifted to a private hospital at Somajiguda from their residence in Old Bhoiguda in less than one hour on Tuesday afternoon. Both of them, aged 66 and 58 years, got infected with the virus and were experiencing breathlessness when the control room received the emergency call at 3.02 p.m.
This free ambulance service is provided by the Cyberabad police for COVID patients. Currently, the Commissionerate has 16 ambulances, which ply round-the-clock in the State capital for shifting patients from their houses to hospital, and vice versa.
The first-of-its-kind and the only-run COVID control room by any police unit across the country has functioned as a ‘war room’ for the last one year now, attending over 200 calls from the twin cities every day.
“This control room is functioning on a war footing now. We are glad to have helped out so many patients and their families who were in distress. This will continue as a yagnam as we are prepared to be available for people to the maximum extent that we can,” Commissioner of Police Vishwanath Channappa Sajjanar told The Hindu.
Stating this as a true example of people-friendly initiative, a concept widely promoted by the Telangana Police, Mr .Sajjanar said that apart from their daily investigation duties, their personnel are doing their best to help COVID-19 patients with everything from plasma donation to ambulance rides, hospital beds and even final rites.
“Nowhere in the country, there is a control room run by the police for arranging plasma, blood, hospital beds, ambulances, and attend any medical emergency,” the officer said.
According to ACP G. Hanumantha Rao, who coordinates with the volunteers at the control room, they get more than 200 calls for plasma, ambulances and other medical services, daily.
“After getting data from the hospitals, our volunteers are convincing the recovered COVID warriors to donate plasma and save lives,” he said.
Mr. Rao said that in the last few months, they successfully convinced over 1,600 people to donate plasma, for which 2,600 victims got benefited. Last year, more than 6,000 people donated their plasma.
“We are responding to more than 85% calls,” he said, adding that they have a dedicated team in Vizag also to coordinate in AP.
There are even calls from other cities such as Guwahati, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, and Delhi, as techies from the city working in other locations continue to reach out to Cyberabad police. “With the help of IT employees working from home, we are trying to provide plasma to patients outside the State as well, which itself is a success story of our of control room,” Mr. Rao said.