Interview with Dr. Harsha Jayakody, Founder – MyDoctor – Corona Awareness Hot Line 1390
- Q : What’s this Corona Awareness Hot Line?
1390 is a free trilingual hotline to provide all Sri Lankans with access to remote medical consultations and minimize physical visits to busy hospitals and clinics. This concept is called Telemedicine. 1390 Hotline is free from any telephone network, and it is accessible from any part of Sri Lanka.
- Q : Can you please explain how this service happens?
When a person Dials 1390 from his phone, it comes to the 1390 automated voice recording where three options are given. The first option is to listen about the Corona Virus preventive measures. There will be recordings of the Corona Virus prevention tips. The second option is to get more information about Corona virus by speaking to a Doctor via MyDoctor service. When a person chooses this option, the call will be dispatched to an available doctor according to a roster. MyDoctor is a Telemedicine service which connects stakeholders of Healthcare with the people. For this 1390 service, there are more than 100 Doctors who have volunteer their service to serve the nation at this given need of hour. These doctors are SLMC qualified well experienced doctors. The advice given will be according to the guidelines given by the Epidemiology Unit & Ministry of Health.
- Q : Can you further explain what type of Information does someone can get speaking to a Doctor?
A person can speak to a Doctor 24/7 from this service. With the current situation in the country, most of the people are having various Health concerns. There may be questions regarding symptoms, there may be questions regarding some relatives or even immediate family members concerns to get cleared from a Doctor. As it is difficult to physically go and meet a doctor, this service is very Helpful to people to get their doubts cleared. They can also verify with a qualified doctor if they have any symptoms to a certain extend. Our Doctor panel will assess the symptoms with the risk factors and categorize them according to the Health ministry guidelines. If there is a higher possibility or risk of having Corona virus, they will be immediately informed to the area MOH and the PHI by the same doctor. In certain cases, they will be also informed to the presidential task force for further follow-up. If there is no risk or no contact history those people will be reassured. If there is risk of exposure & do not have any symptoms, those people will also be advised to self-quarantined and the relevant parties will be informed to follow-up with close monitoring. If there are people with mild symptoms but no contact history, those people will be told to call back if the symptoms worsen. During the last 2 weeks we found many cases who has exposed to positive people, who has a positive travel history which our doctors have advised accordingly.
- Q : What other services do you offer with this Hotline 1390?
Yes. There are more services with 1390. We have enabled free video call feature in the MyDoctor App for people to communicate with the doctor if they want to further clarify symptoms.
If you have Covid19 symptoms : Call 1390 before going to a hospital
If the doctor decides that the patient needs a specialized opinion, MyDoctor has few specialists whom are willing to advice voluntary at this moment. Also, if there is any other issue which the patient needs some specialized advice, the relevant specialist will also be connected according to the available resources. In addition to this psychological support is also a need currently. If a doctor decides that the person who calls needs a psychological support, then the call will be routed to an available qualified psychologist connected with MyDoctor service.
I would take this opportunity to thank all the volunteered Doctors who are engaged with this 1390 service & also the operational staff of MyDoctor, Dialog & Wavenet who works 24 x 7 to serve the people who are in need.
Dr. Harsha Jayakody
MBBS (Sri Lanka), MBA in Health Admin (Malaysia), MSc in Biomedical Informatics (Sri Lanka)
Founder – MyDoctor (Sri Lanka)
Dialog’s e-Working, e-Learning and e-Health Solutions to empower Sri Lankans during COVID