JAIPUR: Around 700 people from the state have consulted ex-defence doctors who started providing online consultation on e-Sanjeevani OPD around a month ago.
While 100 retired armed forces doctors have registered to provide their voluntary services from across the country, five are from Rajasthan who are giving general consultations at present.
City-based ex-defence doctor Col Manish Bassi (retd) said, “Since online OPD was launched a month ago, more than 11,000 consultations have been attended by retired defence doctors across the country while more than 700 have been from Rajasthan alone.
On an average, I attend 20-25 consultations daily.
Currently, the retired doctors are not providing specialised consultations.” After the consultation, which can be either through calls (audio or video) or chats, doctors give digital prescriptions which can be used for getting medicines.
“At times, a relative of the patient also consults in case the latter is unable to give proper details.
In one consultation, three medical reports of the patient can be uploaded if required for the doctor to see,” added Bassi.
The online consultation can be done between 9am and 5pm.
e-Sanjeevani OPD is a government of India flagship telemedicine platform developed by the Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), Mohali, under the aegis of MoHFW and is functioning extremely well.
It provides free consultations to any Indian citizen.
However, with Covid cases surging, the demand for doctors is up as many of whom are deputed for Covid ward duties.
This is where the defence veterans are stepping in to help, said officials.
The medical branch of HQ Integrated Defence Staff is providing telemedicine service for the serving and retired defence personnel and has coordinated with MoHFW and NIC to roll out this exdefence OPD for civilian patients.