Bhubaneswar: Fake Romeos, beleaguered youths, many of whom are serial defaulters, seem to be hell-bent on sabotaging the 108 medical emergency service envisioned by the state government to ferry patients to hospitals at the time of their emergencies.
The offenders have been targeting the services rampantly by calling the toll free number. Operators of the service said that many such fake and hoax calls keep the emergency numbers busy depriving genuine patients of timely government help.
“Every day we receive around 10,000 calls seeking urgent medical attention. Out of which around 700 are fake calls. Most of the calls are made between 7 am and 3 pm. Many of them misbehave with the female phone operators while many abuse the operators without provocation,” said Santosh Kumar Samal, manager of a 108 call centre.
Many young female phone operators of the emergency service claim that while they feel proud of serving the people through the service, such calls often cause hindrances. “Many fake calls keep the emergency line busy and deprive genuine patients of availing the service. Every day we receive such calls. Misbehavior by youths is rampant in such cases,” Monalisa Kar, a phone operator of 108 service, said.
This correspondent, on a visit to the 108 medical emergency response centre, listened to around 15 such fake calls. Some of them were harassers, some serial offenders, some asked the operators to come to films with them, some were heard using explicit and obscene language. There were also cases where the services were asked to ferry animals and dead bodies. The operators also claimed that the number of fake calls escalated during summer and the number of unwanted calls from underage children is also reported.
Another employee of the service, which connects the distressed patients with the hospital through the service, said, “After receiving multiple calls from fake callers we mark them as fake callers in the system. We also try to counsel them briefly sometimes to not keep the emergency service busy,” said Suchismita Nayak.
Manish Kumar, OP