Free Medical Advice over Phone - 104

Free Medical Advice over Phone

HMRI - Health and Management Research Institute - is a Public /
Private partnership program. About 95% is funded by AP State govt.
Rest is raised by HMRI through donations or grants. It is a not for
profit organization. A host of services on health medical related
areas are offered over the phone. To avail yourself of this facility,
just ring up 104 from anywhere in AP.

These are the four basic services:

1. Medical Advice. Paramedics attend to medical queries and try to
offer solutions. They cater to first level queries. They use computer
assisted expert system like structured questionnaires requiring
unambiguous simple answers like yes or no. The Call center is equipped
with persons knowing Hindi, Telugu or English. The query is passed
over to a qualified medical doctor when the paramedic decides to do
so. Advice as what to do and what not to do is given. If the dialog
results in prescribing certain medicines a qualified doctor sends the
prescription as an SMS to the caller. If the caller does not have a
mobile he may go to a medical shop and the prescription is sent to the
pharmacist via SMS. Every user is given a UserID which can be used to
trace his case quickly on subsequent calls.

2. Counseling. Problems in matrimonial, HIV, examinations, Depression
etc are listened to and suitable advice offered over phone. Patients
are advised to seek expert opinion when needed.

3. Information: One can find out details of pharmacies, diagnostic
centers, doctors, hospitals etc from 104. The locality of the caller
is kept in mind while answering. The information is kept reasonably
uptodate.

4. Service facilitation. If person finds any lacunae or problems in
getting services from government run PHCs, a complaint may be made to
104. They will try to address the issue by taking it up with
appropriate authorities.

Apart from the above phone based services, HMRI has a fleet of 470
Mobile Medical Units. These are fully equipped with doctor,
paramedics, medicines and certain basic equipments. The mobile van
calls of villagers on a fixed day in a week. The objective is to cover
all residents beyond three km of any PHC. The service is aimed at
rural poor. Even medicines and vitamins are distributed. Complete
medical history of visitors is maintained. The primary target is women
and children. In emergencies the call is diverted to 108. Screening
for chronic diseases is routinely done.

104 is an important free service. Senior Citizens can reduce running
to the doctor for routine health problems. Help is reliable and fast.
It is just a phone call away. You can rely upon it as a first level
consultant. I have used it a number of times and so I can recommend it
to you with confidence.