The Health Help Centre, HHC, was established in May last year, to complement the emergency services and improve accessibility to ambulances. But, some of the people try to misuse the services by making prank calls, according to officials. Although this has been going since it was established no actions were taken against the prank callers. Not anymore.
The health ministry is planning to take the prank callers to court. They have the system to record voices and numbers. “Some people make fun especially with the ladies. Male callers try to abuse us our lady workers here,” said Sangay Wangdi, Health Assistant, HHC.
One of nurses at the centre, Devika Rai, said some people pretend it to be genuinely in need of help. “Last year I received one call, it was from Bajo. He said that his wife is in labour pain so he is in need of an ambulance. I could hear someone in real pain. So I thought it might be a genuine one and assigned the ambulance and asked them to move immediately. Later, he said he is in town and he is not having any problem.”
This kind of hoax affects the effective delivery of emergency services, according to the officials. Between February last year and March this year, the health help centre received over 400,000 invalid calls and only over 20,000 valid emergency calls. The ministry says though invalid calls do exist in other countries here it is high.
According to ICT Officer, Santosh, if they receive prank calls from the same number repeatedly they will take legal action. “And also from the fourth time the number will be blocked to avail the caller of the services in future”
The Director of the Department of Medical Services, Dr.Ugen Dophu, they would be conducting awareness very soon. “And after that if such calls again continue coming then we have enough evidence to take legal action against them. So we will take them to court and deal accordingly.”
These are some of the measures the ministry is coming up with to prevent the prank callers from misusing the services. The ministry said people must realise that the service is for the people and not for health ministry.
