Citizen Support Centre @COVID-19

Citizen Support Centre – a virtual toll-free platform initiated by CYSD in association with the civil societies played a pivotal role in providing healthcare consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like so many people in the country, finding affordable access to health services is quite a struggle for majority of Odisha’s rural population, especially those residing in the interior pockets; journeys into populated cities to seek care are costly – especially when multiple trips are required. Moreover, when the COVID pandemic struck these problems were magnified.

But what if healthcare could be made more accessible? What if routine services could be conducted by phone?

That’s where the Citizen Support Centre (CSC) entered the scene.  CYSD joining hands with a few like-minded Civil Society Organizations ran and managed a toll-free health care centre and a hotline immensely helping the rural care seekers by connecting them to the right doctor immediately during the critical phase of COVID pandemic.  The innovative platform, with the help of eight Doctors from different sectors, extended service to 2354 rural patients especially women who were the primary victims of the situation- by saving countless amounts of time and money of the rural people.

Apart from the healthcare consultation, more than 10000 people got access to this multilingual helpline, availing help in the forms of COVID information, information on various entitlements, and psycho-social counseling.