Doctors are on call 24/7

With most of the new doctors entering the profession more keen on being specialists, it is not easy to find general practitioners or GPs. Now that they are becoming rare, it is leading to a spiralling of the healthcare costs. Now, Bangaloreans may have a small respite.

The efforts that went into finding a doctor to deal with a friend's small injury that required stitches prompted Murali Ram, a flying enthusiast and a pilot from the US, to launch the Doctor on Call, a 24-hour healthcare service. No, he won't be using air ambulance in the city to help patients.

The effort is not aimed at dealing with emergency cases. It will only deal with non-emergency medical conditions like cough, cold, fever, headache, blood pressure-related problems, problems of diabetics and the like.

While these sound like simple problems, in the absence of someone to take you to a doctor, even these can look like serious conditions, says Ram.

This problem is encountered many a time by many of the senior citizens in the city. They often live alone, with their children and grandchildren either abroad or living somewhere else in the country due to their jobs. For such people the service will be a boon with the doctor being just a call away.

With two ambulances on standby in the north and south of the city, 24/7, Ram believes with their panel of 14 doctors the service will meet needs of many of the people.

With an annual membership fee of Rs 999 a member can avail of upto ten telephonic consultations for the family per annum. If the situation warrants the doctors will pay upto three visits to the members' house.

The service aims to provide instant evaluation of the patient's medical condition, advice on the appropriate treatment and suggest specialised consultation if required.

A patient can choose between allopathy, homoeopathy and Ayurvedic systems of medicine.