Covid control rooms at district levels should be adequately staffed: Centre to states

COVID-19 control rooms set up at district and sub-district levels should collate daily status report of all patients under home isolation in their respective jurisdictions and submit it to the district administration, the Centre told states and union territories on Thursday.

In a letter to states and UTs, additional secretary in the Union health ministry Arti Ahuja outlined that these control rooms must have real-time data on availability of Covid testing centres and ambulances, and should be able to guide a caller on the process for availing these services.

Dedicated ambulances shall be allotted to each control room based on areal case load for transportation of patients, she said in the letter.

Referring to the letter written by the Union health secretary on January 1 regarding seamless administrative management of the COVID-19 situation, Ahuja said it is expected that targeted action for re-establishment of control rooms at district and sub-district levels to ensure ease of access to services such as ambulance transportation and booking a hospital bed would have begun.

Based on the latest guidelines on home isolation issued by the ministry, Ahuja said, these control rooms should be adequately staffed with medical doctors, counsellors and volunteers, among other relevant staff, and shall be equipped with ample phone lines to cater to the assigned population.

Enabling infrastructure in terms of computers and broadband must be provided to the control rooms for uninterrupted connectivity. Depending on the case load, the control rooms shall remain functional round the clock to provide validated guidance and support to the patients.

”Control rooms must have real-time data on availability of Covid testing centres, ambulances, and shall be able to guide the caller on the process for availing these services.

”Control rooms should also monitor the availability of different types of beds across the assigned health facilities and shall counsel the patients/ attendants to avail only the required services based on clinical symptoms and availability of beds. Clear and transparent mechanism for allotment of beds must be ensured by the control rooms,” she said.

Control Rooms will also be responsible to make outbound calls to the patients under home isolation for regular monitoring of their status.

”One of the core responsibilities of the control rooms shall also be to collate the daily status report of all patients under home isolation in their jurisdiction and submit the same to the district administration,” she said.

”You are requested to kindly review this at your level and also assign nodal officers for different levels of control rooms who can be in touch with each other at all times and provide seamless services to citizens,” Ahuja said in the letter addressed to Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary/Secretary (Health) of all states and union territories.