Govt bungles, doctor gets tsunami of calls

Govt bungles, doctor gets tsunami of calls

Manuja.Veerappa@timesgroup.com

04.06.2020

Bengaluru: At 7.30am on Thursday, Dr Ashwin S answered a call on his cellphone. It was the beginning of a nightmare for the non-invasive cardiologist as his phone kept buzzing, virtually non-stop, through the day.

About 50 calls were from relatives of Covid-19 patients, pleading for a bed in the ‘hospital’ in which he ‘works’. The callers believed he worked at Shekhar Hospital on Bull Temple Road, Bengaluru, but Ashwin was helpless since he isn’t an employee there. The barrage of calls was a courtesy of the state government’s bungling.

The genesis of Ashwin’s woes lay in a public notice issued by the department of health and family welfare, listing 73 private hospitals in the city where 50% of beds were reserved for Covid patients. Besides names and addresses of the hospitals, the notice also listed a contact person and his/her phone number for each hospital, besides nodal officials from Bescom and BBMP. The contact for Shekhar Hospital was listed as one Dr Ashwini S, but the number was Ashwin’s. Neither Ashwin nor Shekhar Hospital knows how the number made it to the list.

“I’ve been getting calls for the past couple of days,” the doctor said. “When asked where they got my number from, all callers have a common answer: A WhatsApp forward. I haven’t had much sleep because people are calling at odd hours. These are distress calls so you have to answer them. But it is taking a toll on me mentally. We are frontline workers in very trying circumstances so it’s not easy to deal with a situation like this.”

It only got worse the health department’s list was published in several dailies on Friday. “I can’t switch off my phone because I have to attend to the needs of my patients. I think it is a prank which is in very bad taste because it is a question of life and death. I have been texting the number of Shekhar Hospital to callers,” said Ashwin. Shekhar Hospital said it was unaware a wrong contact number was published until Ashwin brought it to their notice.

“Dr Ashwin worked with us in the past, but we don’t know how his number has been listed as our hospital contact,” said Dr Kaushik Aithal from Shekhar Hospital. “We were not asked for any contact number. We have written to the district health office (DHO), Bengaluru Urban, demanding the number be changed.”

The hospital, in the letter to DHO, has listed the contact number as: 9482676525.

The contact for Shekhar Hospital was listed as one Dr Ashwini S, but the number was Ashwin’s. Neither Ashwin nor Shekhar Hospital is aware how the number made it to the government list.