Uttarakhand: Patients from remote areas suffer as AIIMS Rishikesh stops telemedicine service – ET HealthWorld

Haridwar: Patients from remote areas are faced with a new challenge as AIIMS-Rishikesh has discontinued its telemedicine service. The service was useful during the Covid pandemic.

AIIMS-Rishikesh administration has however claimed that the service was still available for the Oncology department, but has been stopped for others. However, the in-charge of telemedicine service of AIIMS-Rishikesh Dr Yogesh Bahurupi told the media agency, the service is being upgraded and will be resumed soon. “Now, the OPD is working, due to which callers for telemedicine service have also decreased,” he said.

However, the AIIMS administration claimed that consultation on phone and WhatsApp under the telemedicine service are functional since 2018, but during the Covid pandemic, AIIMS-Rishikesh started ‘Garud’ telemedicine service in May 2021. The service was started to facilitate health and medical care, especially in remote areas of Uttarakhand, where getting health facilities is not easy. Moreover, telemedicine played a key role in sharing the load of providing effective healthcare to all.

Sachin Kumar, a resident who tried using the teleconsultation service told TOI, “I got the numbers from the AIIMS website, but they were either switched off or out of network, while the toll-free number was too busy to get through.”