A group of Non-Resident Indian (NRI) doctors and professionals in the United States of America has launched a real-time online map showing available hospital beds in India for Covid-19 patients.
The map, MadadMaps.com by Project Madad (help), has been created to provide critical and time-sensitive information to anxious Covid-19 patients as the country tackles a destructive second wave of the pandemic.
Washington-based Dr Rajesh Anumolu, the lead architect of MadadMaps, said it is India’s first country-wide map that shows available hospital beds with real-time updates.
The portal uses a proprietary algorithm to collect information from all major online aggregators of availability of hospital beds in every city and state across India for both the government and private hospitals, he added.
MadadMaps cross-verifies and filters this information across sites, prioritising official data and omitting all data that has not been updated for long, Dr Anumolu elaborated.
The team consisting of 15 Indians (comprising doctors or Covid-19 experts and 12 professionals), a voluntary unique initiative ‘project Madad’, has been formed with the proper education and training of local healthcare workers and RMPs (Registered Medical Practitioners).
A statement from Madad read, “As Indian families are struggling to access proper care like oxygen supply, ventilators or have an access to an intensive care unit (ICU) bed for their loved ones due to this virus, our citizens are forced to call hospital across the country to find a hospital bed online or place appeals on social media desperately.”
During such an emergency hospital bed sometimes get filled before a patient arrives at the hospital, the team added.
As per the Project Madad team, wherein state governments and civil society organisations are running several aggregators and lists of hospital beds across cities in India, there’s no single source to look for a hospital bed with the latest update anywhere across India in emergencies.
In the battle with Covid-19, India lost tens of thousands of citizens because patients cannot even make it to the hospital. However, this will no longer be the case as the website helps to provide critical and real-time updates with hospital name and location, availability of ICU beds, oxygen supply, and ventilators. It would also indicate the latest updates from available hospital including phone numbers, directions to hospitals and facilities to call up directly from the map.
Thus, the team of ‘MadadMaps.com’ aims for India to battle the deadly second wave of Covid-19 and get prepared ahead of a third wave.
