Outgoing calls at Bhubaneswar's 24X7 COVID-19 call centre cross 1 lakh mark

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], June 14 : The outgoing calls at Bhubaneswar's 1929 24X7 COVID call centre, set up by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) crossed the 1 lakh mark, while the call centre received 88,658 incoming calls till June 13.
According to a press release, the call centre set up at the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre (BOC) of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) office, had made 1,06,326 outgoing calls.
While the outgoing calls were mainly to home isolation patients to find out their health-care status, they also included 2,312 outgoing calls to Red Flag patients. The idea behind categorizing home isolation patients into Red Flag and Green Flag cases is to monitor moderately ill and patients with mild COVID symptoms. Each Reg Flag patient gets a call from the call centre for three consecutive days along with frequent RRT visits to his/her homes.
Besides caring for the COVID-affected people across Temple City, the 1929 call centre executives are currently checking the vaccination status of the frontline health workers as the BMC Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh has focused on ensuring the well-being of the workforce.
The call centre executives till yesterday night had called 6,844 frontline health workers. The beneficiaries are asked the status of the vaccine they have taken, how many doses, and where.
The call centre executives have also helped 28,962 callers in doctor's consultations as many were seeking medical advice from the team of 19 doctors, who are available in different groups in three different shifts.
Similarly, by June 13 the 1929 24X7 COVID call centre received 88,658 incoming calls. The incoming calls are generally requests for hospital shifting, visits of rapid response teams (RRTs) to home isolation patients, getting discharge certificates after the home isolation period is over, information on testing, vaccination, slots, vaccination of the elderly and differently-abled, students planning to go to foreign countries for higher study, death certificates, paid home isolation facilities, travel-related protocols and areas and also cremation related queries.
It is to be noted that by May 20, while the call centre had handled 50,414 outgoing calls to home isolation patients in order to keep track of their health status, it received 51,351 incoming calls from the COVID affected and related persons.
Apart from the doctors, 48 executives are working in three shifts in different groups to handle both the incoming and outgoing calls at the facility. The executives are working under the guidance of six supervising officials of BSCL.
While the first shift of the centre starts at 6 am and goes up to 2 pm, the second shift is scheduled between 2 pm and 10 pm and the third one between 10 pm and 6 am of the next morning.
The calls are managed through 35 work stations. While 15 are used for receiving incoming calls and 5 for outgoing ones, 8 are used by doctors for consultation. In addition, several workstations have been specifically arranged to take the registration bookings for vaccination and testing of above 60 age groups, to register students planning to go abroad with vaccination, doorstep RTPCR testing for a senior citizen and helping senior citizens to be picked up and dropped the following vaccination at a nearby centre close to their localities.