SOCHARA helps people talk to doctors via call center
Dr. Nidhin Cyril, who volunteered for AID while living in New York, now lives in Mumbai where he is a practicing physician working with Doctors Without Borders and a member of the the YuMetta Foundation. Along with SOCHARA they have set up a call center to connect doctors with patients. He described the call center as follows:
The COVID Call Center aims to help people in the panic driven times by means of a three tier approach:
- Infection prevention
- Early diagnosis and treatment
- Specific information during admission at tertiary care
The call centre will run from morning 6:00 am to 12:00 midnight. There will be a toll free number with multiple lines running across all India. SOCHARA will maintain a state-specific database of trained volunteers who can respond to calls. The call center will train volunteers (not only doctors) to not only answer questions related to COVID but also non- covid queries that people will have. we are planning to have 1 doctor for 10 call center volunteers so that medical related difficult questions will be handled by them.
Doctors, psychologists and medical student volunteers will attend to calls related to panic, grief, information, tele consultation, referral, follow up etc.
If possible, we will link the updated real time data on current hospital/ICU bed, oxygen availability etc. on the website for various cities.
If you are a doctor or psychologist interested in helping and would like to register to volunteer through this call center, please complete this form.
YuMetta is a group of interdisciplinary professionals in health, education and environment.
It involves socially motivated and active youths who are sensitive towards various issues around them.
YuMetta specifically wants to engage with the youths for their sensitization, introspection of their capacity and enhancing their learning.
