In an attempt to prevent the police personnel who are coming in close contact with the public from contracting coronavirus infection, the Prakasam Police have launched several measures including a dedicated WhatsApp group to monitor the health status of the department staff and their family members.
A sizeable number of the police personnel are contracting the infection in the line of duty disease including enforcing the curfew in force to check the spread of the virus. Prakasam SP Siddharth Kaushal said elaborate guidelines for police stations, staff and their family members had been issued. Among the preventive measures is ‘Police Family Self Health Groups’ (PFSHGs) with the concept of ‘all for one, all for all’.
As part of the initiative, WhatsApp groups have been created with the personnel and family members through which their health status is being monitored by roping in medical officers and promoting COVID-safe behaviour.
Random call
“The COVID Family Welfare Desk randomly calls 50 personnel daily and monitor their health status. The latest updates related to the infection and various posts relating to information, education, communication activities are being shared among the WhatsApp group members,” said Mr. Kaushal.
Apart from dos and don’ts, videos, infographics, vaccination sites, COVID designated hospitals and details of available hospital beds are also being shared. The group members are being sensitised on healthy diet, nutritional supplements, life saving drugs and etc. The success stories are also being shared among the SHFG members to help them cope with the pandemic crisis.
COVID-safe behaviour
The SP also call the personnel and speak to their family members. Playing the role of level-1 mentor, the SP underscored the need for following the ‘Dasha Sutras’ and 'Pancha Sutras', a series of guidelines pertaining to COVID-safe behaviour that need to be followed by the personnel at their both at work and home.
More than 150 family members of police personnel have been infected by the virus and nine of them are in a critical condition, sources said.
Daily status report
Taking a cue from the SP, 16 level-1 mentors including Additional SPs interact with the police personnel and their family members within 66 police station limits across the district. Fourteen Deputy SPs have been appointed as nodal officers to monitor the health status of 3,600 police personnel in the district on a daily basis and prepare daily status report.
During his whirlwind visit of the busy junctions in Ongole on Sunday, Mr. Kaushal said the curfew was yielding a good result in the form of reduced number of new infections.
