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This call centre is inundated with calls from frightened COVID-stricken patients
The phones ring all the time, sometimes even at night. The majority of callers–helpless, scared and desperate–plead for an ambulance or for a “centre” they can go to after testing positive for COVID-19.
The Sarvodaya emergency relief hotline is just over a week old. It already takes more than one hundred calls a day from people afflicted in some way by the virus who feel they have nowhere else to turn.
“Do you have an ambulance that can take us to a centre?” some ask. “Do you have a centre we can go to or can you tell us one that can accommodate us?” others inquire. With a dramatic rise in positive cases, the system is creaking. Even public health inspectors (PHI) don’t know where to direct the sick and the ambulances can’t take every appeal.
It is the PHI who decides whether a case must go into an intermediate treatment centre or quarantine facility, said Lahiru Dodangoda, Project Coordinator and Call Centre Manager. “But under the current circumstances, some PHIs can’t decide what to do,” he reflected. “Every place is packed. And many callers are scared because they haven’t been picked up for several days, they feel they have breathing difficulties and want to know if there’s any way we can help.”
The one week old Sarvodaya emergency relief hotline already takes more than one hundred calls a day
Yesterday, a man rang the hotline. His younger brother, who had cared for his father all his life, was in a quarantine centre. Now the father was dead and he wanted to know how to get his brother down temporarily for final prayers before the Muslim burial.
The operators often find themselves giving psychological help. There are four lines–two for Sinhala language callers and one each for English and Tamil. The cries come from all over the country. And because Sarvodaya has a strong grassroots network, it is able to help assist.
This week, a call came at around 8 p.m. from a hospital. It was a 25-year-old female patient. She and her mother were infected and were both on a single bed. Every bed in that small ward had two occupants. There were patients on the floor and also in the corridor. The doors were closed and she said she couldn’t breathe well.
“Please, can you at least take us to Kandakadu,” she begged on the phone. “We can’t stay like this.” Lahiru calmed her down and spoke with her at length, assuring her that she was safe as she was in hospital. When he called the hospital the next morning, he found that the institution was straining with COVID-19 caseload.
“They were helpless,” he said. “But when I contacted the patient again, she thanked me saying I had alleviated her fears. Many people need such support.”
There are times when people are taken from their homes to centres but are unable to communicate with their families. (Even today, when a positive person is loaded onto transport and leaves home, he or she has no idea where they are being taken to).
So the call centre talks to his or her families and provides comfort, it addition to offering material assistance such as dry rations if necessary. They also coordinate with the centres regarding certain inmates. And, despite the public education campaign, some patients still don’t know what to do once they get a positive report.
There have been phone calls from parents–both of whom are positive–who have no idea where to leave the kids once they go into a centre. They are worried about their safety and about how they will eat. “When they have no idea whom to get help from, they turn to us,” Lahiru said. “And much of the time, people are very scared, even the ones who are well informed. When the breadwinner or head of the household contracts the disease, is taken away and the rest are confined to their homes, the anxiety is more.”
Where there have been requests for food, Sarvodaya has left bags of dry rations at the barriers in lockdown areas, to be picked up by those that need them.
“One old couple from Matara was in hospital with COVID-19,” said Lahiru. “They were unable to eat hospital food. So they wanted fruits, milk foods and other items. Our district office delivered those.”
There was one case where the husband was in a quarantine centre in Batticaloa while the wife was at home in Trincomalee with a seven-year-old child. “The husband called us saying his wife was mentally down and whether we could help,” Lahiru recalled. “They didn’t want food or any provisions. They were just emotionally affected and she needed reassurance that her husband will get better and return home, and that she was not alone.”
One person from Piliyandala telephoned in tears saying they were being stigmatized because of the virus. They were quarantining at home and the PHIs had pasted a warning on their gate. When passers-by saw it, they would cross over to the other side when passing the house.
A woman who was stuck at home with two children aged 11 and nine after the husband went into a centre was worried about what to do if they also developed symptoms. So the call centre taught her how to find the area PHI and the steps she needed to take if necessary.
“People feel really alone in circumstances such as these and want someone to talk to and get information and comfort from,” Lahiru said.
But sometimes, even the call centre doesn’t know what to do. On Friday, a husband called. His wife and he, both employees of a garment factory in Koggala, were both positive. The PHI had told them they would be taken to different places. However, they were parents of young twins and didn’t know where to keep the kids. The PHI had asked them to find a solution and they wanted to know if there was a centre where all four of them could stay together.
“I also couldn’t think what to do,” Lahiru said, helplessly. “I had no answer.”
The situation is likely to get worse. The caseload is growing and both hospitals and centres are filling up.