Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: Former Principal of Ravenshaw College Prof Niranjan Sarangi was admitted to SUM Covid Hospital after he tested positive for Covid-19 on April 25.
After a 20-day hospitalisation, he finally returned home on Saturday. Although Prof Sarangi stays alone in Bhubaneswar, he was not unattended.
His daughter who resides outside the State, had hired an attendant from a City-based healthcare startup Tech Tricks who took care of him all throughout, beginning from arranging a hospital bed to shifting him and then getting all his tests done to regularly monitoring his condition. And now his daughter has hired a nurse from the firm for Sarangi’s post-Covid care.
“We were worried about how to manage things as it was difficult for us to immediately rush to Bhubaneswar. I came to know about the startup from some sources which came to our rescue. The team took care of my father just like a family member and it is because of their service that he has come home safely now”, said Prof Sarangi’s daughter Dr Leni Choudhury, South-Asia in-charge of University of Chicago, who resides at New Delhi.
Not only the Covid patients, the startup has also been providing home-care to non-Covid patients in the city.
When Covid patients in home isolation find it difficult to get required medical attention, emergency care and even drugs delivered at doorstep, the start-up has come forward to lend a helping hand.
From digitisation of patient records to attending patients at home, connecting them with doctors, supplying medical devices and drugs and helping lab tests done, it has been bridging the huge demand-supply gap in the health sector.
It has tied up with patholabs and ICMR accredited RT-PCR testing labs for helping patients get their tests done apart from pharmacies for delivery of drugs round the clock.
It has been providing home nurses, medical nursing attendant, doctor on calls, medical transportation, part time staff nurses and physiotherapists at a reasonable cost.
The 450-odd staff of the health-tech firm has so far provided service to more than 100 Covid patients and received bookings from 600 patients this month.
“We have a team of doctors and around 400 nurses for non-Covid patients and 60 nurses for Covid patients. Divided in groups, they are working in three shifts. The demand is rising every day as we have been getting more than 200 calls a day for the service. We are in the process of hiring more nurses,” said founder Rashmi Ranjan Mallick.
Launched as a recruitment firm in 2016, it was converted to a technology-driven healthcare platform a couple of years back with an aim to provide medical care to patients at their doorstep.
Mallick, who belongs to Cuttack, decided to shift to Covid care after his friend found it difficult to arrange a bed for his father during the first wave of the pandemic last year.
