Covid war rooms to be manned by 40 doctors

BENGALURU: In a bid to ensure that citizens calling 1912 for help are not made to wait for hours for a call back from respective zonal war rooms, the State government is now working on forming a team of at least 40 doctors permanently stationed there for quick response. This decision was taken after the government found the customer relations management (CRM) service trial unsuccessful. The trial was done for two days, where 1912 acted like a call centre, diverting calls to zonal war rooms.

But since the zonal war rooms are not equipped to handle a large number of calls, the trial was declared unsuccessful and dropped. A government official told TNIE: “The most sought-after helpline in Bengaluru for Covid-19 is facing technical issues, with connected zonal war rooms unable to keep pace. As the CRM service showed no positive results, it was dropped, and will not be started until the zonal war rooms are upgraded. In the meantime, a team of at least 40 doctors will be permanently stationed in the 1912 war room to help patients, and for triaging, so they need not wait.”

The CRM was started with the aim to speed up services to callers. There is also no mechanism to ensure the person whose call was received by 1912 and passed on to zonal war rooms, was addressed or not. There is also no method to know whether a person’s call to 1912 is resolved, as it only takes calls and passes them on. But to address this, and fix a redressal time, the doctors will help callers.

The government is also planning to introduce a docket number for each call, which will indicate whether the issue is resolved. So far, the government had fixed accountability that a call to 1912 will be picked up and the caller’s waiting time is not more than one and half minute. “So now with the team of doctors and docket number, we will know how many times the caller has called, whether the caller is satisfied or if anything else is required.

This will bring in more accountability and help in Covid management. From the calls received, it was assessed that most of the patients do not need ICU immediately. If they care counselled and medically attended to at the very first stage, their anxiety level is controlled and hospitalisation is also minimised. According to records, 1912 received 2,554 calls on May 9, the lowest, of 2,634 calls which landed and 80 abandoned.