The free, round-the-clock hotline 16000, dedicated to Covid-19 inquiries, received about 1.7mn calls since it was launched by the Ministry of Public Health in March.
The English - Arabic hotline also enables the public and healthcare staff to access main health care services provided by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC).
The hotline received more than 552,000 calls to request information or services related to Covid-19. While the rest of the calls were distributed to the other services provided by the line, a number of people with Covid-19 were able to contact the hotline to obtain urgent and quick care, which helped during the peak of the pandemic to facilitate classifying cases and directing them to home quarantine or isolation facilities. It also helped in tracking contacts to identify potential new cases and thus slowing down the rate of infection spread among the population in Qatar.
The hotline provided urgent medical consultation services provided by HMC to more than 220,000 cases who were able to speak with a doctor and obtain medical advice remotely using phone or video calls and prescribed the appropriate drugs.
With regard to patients who needed pharmacy services, the hotline allowed them to benefit from home delivery of medicines by requesting that medicines be delivered to their homes by post or dispensing medicines from the health centre nearest to them. As of December 3, as many as 252,433 patients got 860,64 medicines home delivered.
The hotline provided patients with the National Mental Health Helpline, which has so far received more than 15,000 calls from people in need of support, especially those suffering from psychological pressures and anxiety due to the pandemic. A team of specialised mental health cadres provide support and evaluation to callers classified into four main categories, namely: children and their parents, adults, the elderly, and frontline healthcare personnel.
HMC Quality Sector deputy chief and Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute director Nasser al-Naimi recalled that HMC’s specialised team, in co-operation with healthcare providers, was able to develop an information base to assist the call centre staff in responding effectively to all public inquiries.