Here’s how Twitter became the new COVID-19 helpline

Social media platform turns from trolling arena to life-saving resource stage with celebs, commoners and digital strategists jumping in to hold up crumbling health infra

Here's how Twitter became the new COVID-19 helpline

Ratnabh Mukerjei, 22, a volunteer with AAP Mumbai, has been appointed as the coordinator for the helpline, which the party launched on April 15. The helpline receives an average of 1,500 calls daily. Pic/Sameer Markande

In the last 10 days, Ratnabh Mukerjei has barely slept a wink. Attending to nearly 90 calls a day, 15 hours at a stretch, the 22-year-old has been living a machine-like existence. When we call him for this interview, he can’t seem to recall what day of the month it is. “Is it a Monday?” We say, it’s Wednesday, April 21. Then, as if remembering, he says, “It [the COVID-19 situation in the city] began going downhill from last Monday [April 12].” The Navi Mumbai resident, originally from Delhi, graduated last year during the lockdown. A student of economic policy, he signed up as volunteer with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Mumbai in 2020, because he wanted to “research on the state of the city’s civic infrastructure”. As the Coronavirus infection numbers spiralled in the city early April, AAP launched a 24x7, helpline (7718812200), to assist citizens with bed allocations, oxygen supply and ambulances. Mukerjei decided to join the team helming it. While he isn’t attending to calls directly, as helpline coordinator, he has been tasked with responding to all critical cases directed to him.

Having built a network of contacts with different hospitals, jumbo centres, physicians and pharmacists, Mukerjei assists relatives and caregivers of COVID-affected patients. The good news is that the intervention has helped. The bad news is that the health infrastructure is crumbling, and on most occasions, any help that comes by is too little or late. “I have been experiencing trauma,” he says simply. “I stay in touch with the patient’s family, using all political resources at our disposal, and hear sometimes, a few days later, that they have passed on. I have learnt of five patient deaths after helping them in the last few days.”

Sandhya Fernandes, @SOSSaviours

But, Mukerjei believes this is not the time to grieve. He needs to be persistent at following up on cases flooding the helpline and AAP’s Twitter handle, which has turned into an informal COVID-19 resource centre, not just for Mumbai, but neighbouring regions, too.

Where only last year Twitter was being derided for being the most toxic social media platform, with political propaganda taking centre-stage over the pandemic, in the second and most devastating COVID-19 wave in India, it has transformed into a platform of hope. “If you keep politics out, I think the average Indian is kind. And that’s what you are seeing right now. We have all risen to the occasion. I may not be proud of the uninformed political choices we are making, but I am proud of our people,” says Tisca Chopra. The actor-filmmaker-author is among the celebrities using her social media presence to amplify and verify tweets from anxious families and friends of COVID-19 positive patients.

AAP’s national joint secretary Ruben Mascarenhas, who is also founder-director of Khaana Chahiye Foundation, a citizen initiative to fight hunger, launched a 24x7 COVID-19 helpline on April 15, to help with bed allocations, oxygen supply and ambulances. He personally takes 500 queries a day. Pic/Shadab Khan

Earlier this week, a Mumbai-based investment banker put out an SOS on Twitter. “My uncle had tested positive, and his oxygen levels had dropped drastically. On the doctor’s advice, we called the BMC War Room requesting a ventilator bed, but none were available. His condition was deteriorating and he was suffering hallucinations. We got an ambulance, and rushed him to every hospital close to his home in Chembur, but we were turned away,” the banker says, requesting anonymity.

Digital creator Aanchal Agrawal, who goes by the handle @awwwnchal on social media, says she has stopped posting funny videos, since medical care is priority. “I put everything that I was doing in life on pause. This needed my attention”

Helpless, he posted on Twitter, tagging several people. AAP’s national joint secretary Ruben Mascarenhas, who is also founder-director of Khaana Chahiye Foundation, a citizen initiative to fight hunger, was among them. “Ruben replied within five minutes, and promised to arrange for an ICU facility with oxygen support at home.” A contact helped set up the facility for the family within four hours.

Ratnabh Mukerjei, 22, who started volunteering with AAP Mumbai last year, has been appointed its helpline coordinator. He is tasked with responding to all critical cases directed to him, and receives an average of 90 calls daily. Pic/Sameer Markande

His uncle, 66, is currently stable, and the family cannot thank social media enough. “I never took a shine to Twitter. In fact, I barely ever posted. But this time, I saw 400 retweets within a few hours. Everyone was trying to do their bit, sharing every lead possible.”

Actor-filmmaker-author Tisca Chopra is among the celebrities using her social media presence to amplify and verify tweets from anxious families

Thirty three-year-old Mascarenhas says as a politician, if he can’t help those in need, he isn’t worthy of the privilege. His first requests on Twitter began appearing 10 days ago. “Because I am connected with some BMC staff, I was able to resolve cases I learnt of on Twitter. At some point, I think my number went viral. I was inundated.” The state’s COVID-19 helpline numbers and BMC War Room was overwhelmed. “There had to be a way around this madness. So, we decided to launch a dedicated COVID helpline and got volunteers to work through the day in shifts.”

Jimeet Ved, who works with an insurance firm, handles @dakuwithchaku on Twitter, which has become an important COVID-19 resource platform. He says because BMC updates data in real time, unlike other metros, volunteers like him can be more effective

Calls and tweets come in for four reasons—beds, oxygen cylinders, medication or for plasma donors. “For beds, we first direct the callers to the War Room, especially, because many people from the poorer sections have absolutely no idea how to go about this. If the case is a critical one, we make calls to the BMC, or the hospitals to try and expedite it.”

Nagpur-based author and social media consultant Harleen Vij, 33, says volunteering to help patients over the last eight months has taken a toll on her mental health

On April 22, with 3,14,835 cases, India saw the world’s highest one-day rise in COVID-19 infections. News of hours’ worth of oxygen supply at several hospitals and the shortage of drugs like remdesivir, tocilizumab and fabiflu, have now become commonplace.

Last week, Kurla resident Misbah Waghoo ran from pillar to post for a bed with oxygen support and a BiPAP machine for her 73-year-old father-in-law Mohammed Gayasuddin Shaikh. He was suffering from bronchitis and was admitted to a private hospital near her home. “On April 12, his condition deteriorated. We realised that he needed to be admitted to a COVID-19 care centre, so I called up the L Ward, BMC War Room. They said they’d get back, but three days had passed, and we hadn’t heard from them.”

Kurla resident Misbah Waghoo and her husband Amin Shaikh struggled for nearly a week to get a bed for her father-in-law Mohammed Gayasuddin Shaikh before social media provided assistance

By then, his oxygen saturation levels had dropped to 40. Desperate, Waghoo and her husband Amin Shaikh went to the BKC Jumbo Centre, but were informed that there were no beds. “We contacted nearly 12 hospitals. It was terrible.” Although she reached out to Mascarenhas and his team, it took them a couple of days, before they could arrange a bed at Bhabha Hospital in Kurla for Gayasuddin, whose condition, Waghoo says, is slowly improving.

Mumbai is currently facing a huge paucity of ICU beds. On Wednesday, when we spoke to a source, who had access to data on the BMC COVID dashboard, there were just two ICU ventilator beds available across the city. By Thursday 2 pm, Mascarenhas had tweeted from his handle with: “No ICU-Ventilator beds available in Mumbai. #COVIDEmergency2021.”

Sandhya Fernandes and a group of changemakers started @SOSSaviours on Twitter last year. The 20-member team is now spread across several corporations in Maharashtra. They stay in touch over WhatsApp, each one tasked with helping look for a particular resource. Fernandes seen here with Darshan Popat, Nasar Yusuf and Chandu Holi. Pic/Shadab Khan

There are four different categories of beds with the BMC—ICU ventilators, ICU non-ventilators, COVID positive with oxygen bed, and COVID positive without oxygen. “When the BMC says that we have 5,000 beds available, they aren’t specifying in which category,” says Mukerjei. As of April 21, the BMC’s dashboard showed 722 beds available, out of 10,577, the source shared. “I have been telling doctors that they can’t recommend patients who need ventilator beds to hospitals. That is no longer an option,” adds Mukerjei, who calls the home ICU set-up most feasible.

Mascarenhas says that the helpline has been receiving around 1,600 calls a day. This doesn’t account for the 500-odd calls and DMs he tackles personally. “Yet, I cannot say we are a substitute for the BMC. Right now, it is also overwhelmed. Even during normal times, it’s a broken system. How can you suddenly expect it to function in acute distress? What Twitter has done then, is offer people direct access to those who can still help.”

Kaushik Raj, Delhi-based poet and writer

Long before Twitter came into its own, Sandhya Fernandes and a group of changemakers launched @SOSSaviours on the platform. The volunteer initiative started last year, when Mumbai was in the thick of the pandemic. Until before that, the Powai resident, who is brand strategist with a daily newspaper, had been providing ration to migrant labourers by generating funds for the cause on Facebook. “At the time, I was least active on Twitter. I had about 100 followers, and didn’t even know how to navigate it. The only reason I joined was to help a group of visually-challenged people in Trombay,” she recalls, adding, “When I was successfully able to resolve the issue through interventions, I realised its true potential. Very few words, and more action.”

She tackled her first medical case in June 2020, when the family of an elderly patient connected with her. They had been waiting for nearly three hours outside Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital, Powai, for a bed. “The call came at 3 am. At the same time, Jeetu Lalwani, the founder of Dial4242 [an ambulance network], also reached out, requesting that I help the family. I knew very little about providing emergency medical help. But, I took it up as a challenge, and over the next few hours I made calls to several hospitals.” She finally took the patient to Sion Hospital at 5 am. “It was a moment of immense happiness.”

That incident made her realise the need for an effective support group. Fernandes along with Lalwani, Darshat Popat, Yogita Shetty, Sabita Chanda and others launched SOS Saviours soon after. The 20-member team, which met on Twitter, is now spread across several corporations in Maharashtra. The team stays in touch via WhatsApp, and each member is tasked with helping look for a particular resource. “Whenever there is a critical issue, we hand-hold the family,” says Fernandes, who along with Chanda, has been taking plasma requests in the second wave. “Our equation with the families doesn’t end with meeting their requests. We do follow-ups, and even take patient updates from the medical staff, and share it with them. We are with them, till the patient is discharged and home.”

Digital creator Aanchal Agrawal, who goes by the handle @awwwnchal on social media, has stopped posting funny videos for nearly a week. Her highlights on Instagram are about specific leads on where to source free oxygen supply, and find plasma donors. She uses Twitter to share requests that come to her, once she has verified the details. “Earlier too, I would amplify requests if I was tagged, by retweeting or sharing. But, I was never personally involved as a volunteer,” she says in a telephonic interview. What changed for her was the surge of tweets from those urgently seeking medical care. “I put everything that I was doing in life, on pause. This needed my attention.” That strangers were pinning their hope on her was overwhelming. “You can’t disassociate yourself from something like this.” Realising that she would need help, Agrawal put out a distress plea on social media, requesting for volunteers. “So many people came forward to help. We created a WhatsApp group and started sharing information there. A few members were great at creating Excel sheets, so they helped collate the information that was trickling in. Others would verify any kind of leads, cross-checking if the information on beds and medicines was accurate.”

The fall out of this volunteering is burnout. Author and social media consultant Harleen Vij, 33, a COVID volunteer from Nagpur, says the circumstances are trying. “I started actively volunteering after my family’s tryst with COVID-19 in August last year. I realised there was a lot of misinformation around COVID-19 care, which was only adding to the stress,” she says. For a volunteer like her, work doesn’t end with amplifying a tweet. “That would lead to more chaos, because what is happening right now is that if someone has a lead for oxygen cylinders, and we share it, the stock gets exhausted within minutes. So, we have to constantly monitor. We also ask people, who have received help, to delete their old tweets. We don’t want volunteers following up on dated requests.”

Sometimes, the patients’ families are so drained that they end up directing their rage at volunteers, too. “Recently, someone contacted me for a bed. By the time, I arranged the bed, they had found one in another hospital, so I shared the details with the next person on my list. Incidentally, both the parties reached the hospital for the same bed, and it got very ugly,” she shares.

Having been involved in this for nearly eight months, Vij says volunteering has taken a toll on her emotional and mental health. “When that happens, I try and take a break. But, I can’t distance myself for too long.”

Delhi-based poet and writer Kaushik Raj, who has been tirelessly responding to tweets and DMs, says that because patients rely so heavily on volunteers, one can’t afford to be unavailable even for an hour. “A few hours here and there could make a huge difference to the patient’s life. Even as I am speaking to you, I am constantly receiving calls,” he says, “If it is actually too late, and the family, which is understandably upset, reacts badly, I don’t say anything.” On Friday, Raj and his team created a COVID helpline (9999109157) to assist distressed patients across India.

Agrawal says she hasn’t slept for days. “Just a few nights ago, I was worried sick trying to find a bed for a patient in Ahmedabad. When one of the volunteers finally managed to trace a bed, we were all relieved. But, I had hit a big low. A volunteer friend called me at 3.30 am, reading me a poem to make me feel better.”

Given the torrent of calls and consistent first-hand exposure to tragic circumstances, AAP Mumbai on Thursday decided to make counselling therapy by professionals compulsory for all those receiving calls on their helpline. Vandita Morarka, founder of One Future Collective, an organisation working towards developing compassionate youth social leadership, is facilitating the same.

Interestingly, Twitter is also helping call out hoarders. Ekta Joshi, a PR professional from Mumbai, says when a friend’s boyfriend in Bhopal urgently required remdesivir, the hospital asked the family to procure the drug from outside. When Joshi put up a post, she was given the contact of a pharmacist in the Madhya Pradesh capital, who surprisingly shared with her that a large stock of the injection had made its way from him to the said hospital. “When the family confronted the hospital authorities, they gave him the injection without creating more fuss. If not for Twitter, we wouldn’t have found out about the hoarding,” she says.

Jimeet Ved, who manages the digitisation department of an insurance firm, and runs the handle @dakuwithchaku on Twitter, which has become an important COVID resource in the last few days, says that contrary to perception, Mumbai is currently better managed than many other Indian metros. “Ours is the only city that has a proper War Room in place. It has taken a lot of load off us volunteers. We first direct patients to the War Room and only if they find it difficult to get help there, do we intervene. The oxygen situation is also getting better now. Yes, medicines continue to be a problem. Ahmedabad updates its data only twice a day, which is not enough. Even Delhi mentions hospitals that don’t exist on the list. In Mumbai, we receive real-time data, and that’s what gives volunteers like us some hope.”

Chopra, who with help from Gurugram-based Niharika Tandon, a social media strategist for various influencers, has been working to ensure COVID resources reach those in need, says, “I think doing this is simple citizenry. We can’t let more people die. Social media is a powerful broadcasting platform, and has helped me tremendously, whether it is to promote a brand or a film.” This was her way of showing gratitude to her followers. “It’s really payback time for us, and I feel more actors and celebrities should come forward to do their bit. I have never been politically inclined, but this crisis has me realise that this is a clear failure of governance.”

Raj adds, “The governments have left us to fend for ourselves. A situation where 19-year-olds must volunteer to save lives should not have arisen. What’s more depressing than having to tweet for oxygen?”

How to find COVID resources via Twitter search

Log on to covid19-twitter.in. Scroll and type your city name. Check [tick] the resources you require [bed, ICU, oxygen, ventilator etc], and uncheck the key words you do not need. Check “show verified tweets,” which will show tweets that contain the word “verified”. Click on “generate links”. Once you click on it, it will take you to Twitter, on its latest section, which will include people who are sharing information on the resources you require. Don’t forget to check the site for verified information.

Courtesy/@neilathayde, Instagram

Celebrity speak

Tisca Chopra

Tisca Chopra, Actor-author
“We have all risen to the occasion. I may not be proud of the uninformed political choices we are making, but I am proud of our people”