Indian doctors abroad pitch in to help fight COVID-19

They offer free medical consultation daily from 6 a.m. to 9.30 a.m.

As the country struggles to find even proper medical advice with exponential rise of COVID-19 cases, five Telugu doctors and IT professionals in the United States decided to do what they have been trained for — serve the needy with their expert advice.

The tele-health initiative is free of cost and is available from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Indian time and Indian doctors from the USA and UK, who have enrolled for the service voluntarily will speak to the Indian callers and guide them with their medical advice in these distressing times.

“Since we are working abroad and can’t write prescriptions for Indian patients we are assessing the symptoms and reviewing their treatments,” says the Atlanta based cardiologist Srini R. Gangasani, who started the eGlobalDoctors, a telehealth practice, along with four of his classmates from 1982 batch of the A.P. Residential School (Now TS Residential School) in Sarvail, Yadadri district.

Dr. Gangasani says India is facing acute shortage of medical advice as doctors are over-stressed and patients are increasingly getting panicky. “Our volunteers get connected with those seeking medical help and extend their advice free of cost.” His four friends who came up with this initiative are — Dr. Amarendar Reddy (USA), Dr. Srinivas Gadikoppula (UK), Dr. Madhusudhan Reddy (USA) and Dr. K. Sambasivaiah (India). While the first three are from the TSRS Sarvail, Dr. Samba is from the APRS Kodigenahalli in Anantapur district.

The response has been amazing ever since the service was started on May 3. About 120 volunteers from various time zones in the USA and UK are offering services in various Indian languages apart from English. As many doctors are not specialised in COVID-19 treatment all the participants went through a training session on the virus understanding and the needs of Indian patients, according to Dr. Gangasani, who also works actively with the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI).

How does it work? People in need of medical advice should log into ‘eglobaldoctors.com’ and fill up a registration form. Those who can’t register can seek help from volunteers sending their name, age and phone number to ‘[email protected]’ and one of the volunteers will help them to register once they join the Zoom link.

Later, when they log into the website those who have registered will be automatically allotted a doctor and they can have a tele-consulting through the Zoom link. However, the service will be available from 6 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. Indian time.

Dr. Gangasani says the AAPI is helping out in this initiative apart from Sewa, who have raised funds over US$ 2 million to provide oxygen concentrators and cylinders and ship them to India.

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