Medical advice helpline inaugurated in city

Come Wednesday, the city will have a call centre to provide medical advice to the public.

The department of health and family welfare has set up the 104 - Arogya Sahaya Vani call centre, to provide medical advice on minor ailments and its treatment. It will also act as a grievance redressal system, counselling centre and will also provide information about national and state health programs.

The centre will be inaugurated in Sir C V Raman General Hospital on Wednesday. The services will be available for 24 hours, throughout the year. It is being implemented under the Public-Private Partnership, by engaging Piramal Swasthya Management Research Institute (PSMRI) of Hyderabad.

"We are setting up the call centre in Bengaluru as the call centre in Hubballi has started to get double the calls from what it used to get when it was set up in 2013," said Dr Narayan, deputy director, Emergency Response Service, department of health and family welfare, Karnataka.

He said that the call centre in Hubballi gets around 10,000 calls a day, which has exceeded its capacity. So there was a necessity to start another call centre in Bengaluru, he said.