As the twin-city’s trajectory of daily coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases continues to witness a downward trend, the number of distress calls made to the dedicated helpline number of Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation’s (MBMC) pandemic control room in Bhayandar has also registered a significant reduction, for the past couple of weeks.
Since setting up the war room in MBMC’s main administrative building in Bhayandar in July, the dedicated helpline number (022-28141516) of the control room has attended 9,556 calls including 8,901 distress calls.
Apart from arranging 57 and 421 beds for patients at various private and public healthcare facilities through the online portal and by tele-booking mode respectively, personnel deployed at the 24x7 control room have also facilitated ambulance and hearse facilities by coordinating with various agencies.
In September the control room attended to 4,410 calls, but the number of phone calls pertaining to coronavirus scare at the helpline has reduced to 3,172 this month.
"Unlike before when we received more than 125 calls a day, the number of calls has drastically reduced and now we address around 70 calls. Moreover, 15 to 20 calls are now related to post-Covid complications," said an on-duty medico.
“While 12 qualified doctors have been deployed to work in three shifts to provide round the clock service, we have availed MTNL’s Primary Rate Interface (PRI) system, which allows simultaneous attendance to 30 calls at a time.” said MBMC’s public relation officer Raj Gharat, while highlighting some of the recent instances when the helpline offered immediate assistance to people in need.
“Yes, the number of calls has decreased, but the round the clock facility will continue to cater to the needs of the people and ensure immediate redressal.” said deputy civic chief Sambhaji Waghmare.
Meanwhile, 95 more people tested positive for the infection on Thursday. With the latest additions, the total number of cumulative positive patients catapulted to 22,416. However, with 20,615 recoveries the active cases are now limited to 1092.
The death toll has mounted to 709.
