Vodafone Ghana Foundation relaunched the Healthline Call Centre during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide accurate information and expert medical advice to people living in Ghana.
Since the re-launch, it has impacted the lives of 30,460 people and is now set to conclude its operations in August 2023, considering the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration that the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global emergency.
The Healthline Call Centre is a toll-free assistance on Vodafone and other networks manned by licensed medical doctors.
At the peak of the pandemic, the Vodafone Healthline Call Centre served as a reliable source of information to combat the spread of erroneous COVID-19 information and rumours, which was a major concern for governments and medical workers worldwide.
In addition to the call centre offering first-line medical advice to callers with symptoms of COVID-19, the team also worked with the national COVID-19 surveillance team to report any physical contact by callers with infected persons to enable proper contact tracing.
Commenting on the impact of the call centre, Preba Greenstreet, Legal and External Affairs Director of Vodafone Ghana said, “we are proud of the impact of the Healthline Call Centre during its operation. The touching stories recorded overs these couple of years are truly heart-warming and validate our commitment to impact lives.”
He said “Through this initiative, many lives have been saved, chronic diseases have been diagnosed early and referred to medical facilities, free sexual and reproduction counselling have been provided and we can say we have improved the quality of life of many Ghanaians. We can now confidently bring its operations to an end and focus on our other initiatives in health and education”.
The Call Centre was staffed by 50 doctors from the Ghana Health Services (GHS) who underwent specialised COVID-19 training.
As the infections reduced, the number of doctors were gradually reduced, and their focus shifting to general medical advice.
The call centre has exemplified the efficacy of telemedicine in complementing traditional healthcare services.
“While this marks the end of a crucial chapter in the fight against COVID-19, Vodafone Ghana Foundation remains committed to its mission of improving the well-being of Ghanaians,” he said.
BY TIMES REPORTER
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