Imagine you are quarantined on suspicion of COVID-19 or that you have the intuition that you are already infected and need medical assistance. But dropping in at a hospital or clinic unannounced may prove catastrophic and sabotage the government’s efforts to ‘break the chain’.
To overcome this dilemma, the Kochi City Police Commissionerate on Thursday launched a telemedicine platform, Swaraksha, facilitating consultations between doctors and patients in the virtual world. The Indian Medical Association, Rotary District 3201 and Jio Mobile are associating with the programme.
“The motto of the platform is ‘Protect and be protected’. So far, 25 doctors have volunteered to associate with the online service and they have been given dedicated mobile phones and SIM cards for addressing the concerns of people and extending medical help,” said District Police Chief (Kochi City) Vijay Sakhare. The link to the online service will be published on all social media platforms of the City Police Commissionerate and can be easily accessed with a single click. The home interface of the online service comes with a link to send a message in the form of a WhatsApp message, which could be text, audio or video.
Control room
The message lands at the control room set up by the commissionerate exclusively for dealing with COVID-19 related issues and will be handled by a team of police officers and paramedics.
“The control room will place a call to the number from which the message was received to confirm the genuineness of the message and weed out pranksters. The message then goes to a database accessible by doctors. The control room then arranges a conference call with the doctor and the one seeking medical assistance before disengaging itself from the platform leaving it to the other two parties,” said Mr. Sakhare.
He hoped that the online facility, accessible across the country and even beyond, will prove to be a blessing to those seeking medical assistance without getting infected or spreading the infection.
Mr. Sakhare also insisted on the importance of those in quarantine following the quarantine protocol to prevent the spread of the disease.
