Hemant launches website to facilitate booking of Cov beds

Ranchi: Chief minister Hemant Soren on Friday launched www.amritvahini.in, a centralised website managed by the state government’s department of health, medical education and family welfare. The website will enable Covid-19 patients and their relatives to book beds at Covid-19 hospitals across the state on a real-time basis.
“Using the website or the mobile application, beds — both oxygen supported and non-oxygen supported — can be booked. However, if the patient does not turn up at the hospital within two hours of booking a bed, the bed will be allotted in another patient’s name based on the condition of medical emergency,” Soren said after the launch.
Till 6pm on Friday, none of the 41 private hospitals and nursing homes in Ranchi, which has been designated as Covid-19 hospital, had any ventilator-equipped ICU beds available for booking. “What is the use of online websites if there are no beds in the first place?” Ashok Pal, the relative of a Covid-19 patient in Doranda, said. However, oxygen-supported beds and ventilator-equipped ICU beds were available at the Military Hospital in Namkum and CCL Hospital in Gandhi Nagar, the website said.
Soren also inaugurated a WhatsApp number (8595524447) for Covid-19 patients in home isolation seeking doctor consultations over video calls, advice on diets and medicines.
“As many as 800 patients were provided oxygen-supported beds through the Covid circuit initiative, which was launched a week ago. We have already arranged the delivery of medical kits to 43,000 patients living in home isolation. The efforts are underway to provide better medical facilities to the patients despite the growing challenges,” Soren said.
However, patients living in home isolation challenged Soren’s claims. “Forget medical kits, there was no contact from district Covid-19 control helpline. I had a hard time getting my family members tested. I purchased pulse oximeters at four times the MRP myself and am consuming medicines under advice from private doctors whom I consulted virtually. There is a shortage of drugs at the pharmacies. There was no medical kit of any sort given to us,” Pankaj Jha, a Covid-19 patient living in Dangratoli area of Ranchi, told TOI over phone.