With the daily Covid 19 cases crossing the three-lakh mark for over two weeks now, India is going through one of toughest times in the world right now. Where state and the central government are trying to cope up with the health infrastructure, people are finding it very difficult to get the required medical assistance in a timely manner.

During such hard times, an IAS officer in Bihar has come up with an initiative which should give people a sigh of relief. The officer is the District Magistrate of Darbhanga, Mr. Thiyagrajan SM, who has launched an application by the name of ‘Covid Bulletin’ in which people from all around the country can check the status of any admitted patient in the district- just by entering their patient’s mobile number.

This initiative is taken at a time when too much panic has been created all over the country and the distressed families of infected patients are trying to get health updates regularly.

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IDEA AND IMPLEMENTATION

In an exclusive interview with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Thiyagrajan said “In the Darbhanga Medical College Hospital (DMCH), which is the main hospital for many districts of north Bihar, a lot of Covid 19 patients in moderate and serious conditions are getting admitted. The attendants are not allowed inside the hospital as per the protocol, so they are mostly waiting outside the premises.”

“As the district consist of a lot of migrant population, many people live outside the state in places like Delhi, but whose near and dear ones are getting positive and serious in Darbhanga. In fact many people also live abroad and have connection with their parents who live in the district. For all these people there is an urgent human need to know the immediate condition of their loved ones. At this time, it becomes very difficult to get regular updates from doctors or other medical staff, therefore the objective of launching this initiative was to make things easier for them with the help of technology”, he added.

Taking these factors into consideration, an application named ‘Covid Bulletin’ was launched by the administration last week in which any person in or outside the district can get to know the current status of the infected patient. “The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store and by just entering the patient’s registered mobile number, all information about him or her can be accessed, right from the admission stage to the current status. Most important is the current status which is being updated twice a day, at morning and evening,” said Mr. Thiyagrajan.

BENEFITS

This innovative idea is expected to help hundreds of people whose relatives have tested positive and are serious. At the same time, it will also help the administration in monitoring the Covid situation in the district.

While explaining, Mr. Thiyagrajan said “From the administration point of view, the application has in important feature in the shape of a dashboard of the patients. Now this includes the total active cases present in the hospital, such as serious cases, deaths and the discharges. This also helps us in keeping an eye on the availability of beds for new patients”

“We can keep monitoring if all of these steps are taken care of. If the discharges or improvements in the condition of patients are happening every day, then by monitoring all of this the quality of treatment can be roughly judged. Many medical professionals and medical staff also decline to meet the attendants physically, therefore this app will help in that aspect also,” he added.

The district administration of Darbhanga has also started listing the patients of the private hospitals, and their kin too can get access to all details.