Blessing in trying situations: OBHAI’s dedicated home-hospitals runs
Nazim Ahmed, a good retired banker residing in the capital's Mohakhali DOHS, was mired in consternation the other day when he realised his daughter was showing main COVID-19 symptoms: fever, dry cough, tiredness, sore throat and human body ache.
He felt an exigency of getting each person in his home tested immediately for the highly contagious pathogen.
The primary obstacle to doing this was taking them to check centres or hospitals as he had sent his chauffeur on keep with pay in the last week of March, just before the federal government announced countrywide shutdown to flatten the spread on coronavirus.
But he breathed a sigh of comfort when he found find out about OBHAI Sheba, dedicatedly working on commuting healthcare staff and sufferers to hospitals or health care centres amidst the current coronavirus blitzkrieg.
"I've used it thrice within the last couple of days. They are rendering wonderful service at the same time when persons are struggling to have a safe setting of transport to risky places like hospitals during the crisis," Ahmed informed The Daily Star yesterday.
Besides, the most unique aspect of the service is that it takes the customers from their homes to hospitals and waits, he added.
Launched in later April by ridesharing services OBHAI, the emergency transport service, as part of the country's fight against coronavirus, aims to focus on customers who will be failing woefully to get timely treatment due to too little safe means of transportation.
Not only ordinary persons like Ahmed, but OBHAI Sheba in addition has particularly gone to get the hearts of key folks on the frontline: doctors, nurses and other wellbeing workers.
"At the beginning, there was a severe lack of transportation. When we began availing the assistance from OBHAI Sheba, it helped me a lot," Tishadur Bappy, a medical officer of Dhaka Medical School Hospital, told The Daily Celebrity yesterday.
He was particularly worried over the safe and sound commute of his wife, a health care provider at BIRDEM General Medical center, from his Mirpur residence. Travelling to and fro each day was getting rough for them, and on Eid evening they availed the provider.
"OBHAI's protection precautions were good and the drivers were as well smart. Overall, their program is very good," said Nuzhat Zohra, who's carrying out her internship at the Mixed Military Hospital.
She used the platform many times to commute to the hospital from her house in the capital's Banasree.
The platform has undertaken a bunch of safety actions to guarantee the protection of drivers and passengers from the virus.
Each of their cars got plexiglass installed between the driver and passenger to shield both from infectious droplets from breathing, sneezes or coughs.
Every OBHAI vehicle driver must visit an area-based OBHAI Hub to examine their health condition prior to starting their daily drive. Only healthy motorists are designated for rides and get a protection package which includes a mask, cells and hand sanitiser.
Before the journey, the driver wears personal shielding equipment, a mask and gloves and throughout the journey they are to completely clean their hands often with the hand sanitiser.
Tissue and palm sanitiser are given to the passenger found in the vehicle as well.
Drivers get rid of their used cells, mask and gloves after every ride and employ bleach-based answers to clean the complete vehicle.
The program introduced cashless payment systems through mobile wallets such as for example bKash and Nagad and point of sale machines to ensure that passengers and riders can maintain social distancing even following the ride.
Obhai Sheba happens to be available in Dhaka and Chattogram from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm.
Passengers can book a good ride on the emergency vehicle service using the OBHAI app, OBHAI's Facebook and Instagram internet pages or calling the OBHAI Phone Centre in 16633 and on WhatsApp at 01313-037546.
The booking needs to be made at least 1 hour to 24 hours before availing the ride.
"As we've been heading through such a crucial phase globally, we have really got to acknowledge the value of healthcare features of our country," Syed Ashraful Karim Sarjil, mind of OBHAI (car) operations.
Founded in 2018, ridesharing start-up OBHAI has 4 modes of transport -- autos, compressed natural gas-run three-wheeler auto-rickshaws and motorcycles, including female-driven kinds for female passengers.
Currently operating across 23 cities including Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna, Jashore and Barisal, the service is complemented simply by a call centre (16633) running 24/7.
