In order to break the COVID-19 chain by tracing infected people as early as possible, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has decided to take the help of WhatsApp. All civic health centres have been asked to create a group on the social messenger and add private doctors of their respective areas to get an update of patients displaying fever or similar symptoms. The civic body is emphasising on the need for effective tracing, isolation, and treatment to contain the virus in the city. Its total has already crossed 14,000 with over 4,400 active cases.
Civic chief Abhijit Bangar directed medical officers of all civic health centres to create a WhatsApp group and include private doctors of their respected areas to get the details of patients having fever or similar symptoms from them. Bangar directed that no person with fever from a private doctor as well as from a civil health centre’s flu clinic should be left without conducting a Rapid Antigen test. There are 23 civic health centres apart from the flu clinic opened especially after the COVID-19 outbreak.
The civic chief visited Nerul on Wednesday and interacted with health officials, assistant commissioner of the ward and senior police officials of Nerul police station. While emphasising strict lockdown in containment zones, Bangar directed them to pay special attention to critically ill patients. He clarified that the primary focus of the civic body is to bring down the mortality rate.
“Medical officers have been asked to keep in touch with the relatives of such persons in their area as well as the hospital where the patient is being treated by telephone at least once a day,” said a senior civic official, adding that senior citizens as well as people with other ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease also need to be given careful attention. “Not a single patient of COVID-19 should go untreated in NMMC’s jurisdiction,” said the official.
