UDHAVI Community Support During India's Second COVID-19 Wave: A Descriptive Study on a Tertiary Care Center's Pandemic Response Helpline

Background: In April 2021, during the peak of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, hospitals overflowed with COVID-19 patients, and people hesitated to seek necessary care due to fear of contracting the disease. The UDHAVI helpline was set up by a tertiary care hospital in Vellore with the help of district administration, nongovernmental organizations, and various sup-porting agencies to provide general information, medical advice, counseling, and logistics support to the community.Methods: This is a retrospective study of all the phone calls made to the UDHAVI helpline between mid-May and mid-June 2021 during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The calls were electronically captured as part of the process, and the infor-mation was subsequently retrieved and analyzed.Results: In all, 677 calls were received. The lines for general in-formation, medical advice, counseling, and logistics support received 168 (25%), 377 (56%), 15 (2%), and 117 (17%) calls, respectively. Home care kits, oxygen concentrators, and food were delivered by volunteers from local nongovernmental organizations and hospitals.Conclusion: We believe the details of our experience would be useful in the preparedness and mobilization of resources in the event of any public health emergency. As a result of this initiative, we propose an integrated partnership model for emergency re-sponse to any pandemic situation.