Mumbai: BEST handled COVID among its staff well, says int'l labour body

The BEST has approximately 40,000 employees. File pic

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has chosen the BEST Undertaking, the only transport organisation in India so far, for best health and wellness approach for its 40,000 employees while handling the COVID-19 pandemic. The VCT@Work (Voluntary Counselling and Testing) Health and Wellness at Work Journal published by the ILO at Geneva lauded the BEST.

Dr Anilkumar Singal, chief medical officer, BEST

"An integrated health testing has been offered since 2018 to reduce stigma associated with HIV testing and to follow an overall health and wellness approach. A high-protein diet is offered at concessional rates at depots, workshops and mobile canteens. The company has also set up an in-house drug rehabilitation centre. This approach and preparedness helped BEST in responding to the pandemic of COVID-19 as well. BEST has set up a COVID-19 response team and started antigen tests for all employees at 27 bus stops," the journal said.

"A Tele Monitoring Severity Score System has been developed under which BEST's doctors monitor the health of COVID-19 patients through five-minute calls periodically. This has made a positive impact on recovery. "As a result, between April and September, out of 2,340 COVID-19 positive employees, 2,125 employees were fully cured," it added.

BEST Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Anilkumar Singal said the ILO representative in Asia contacted him when the pandemic was at its peak during April and May, after which ILO tracked the BEST's response. Singal said that starting with awareness was key, followed by restricting the spread of infection, distributing immunity tablets (over 11,14,271 strips of Vitamin C, D and Zinc tablets) and temperature checks at entry points for aggressive case finding and contact tracing. More than 21,225 employees who went on long leave, had a history of travel and hospital visits, resided in containment zones, sealed premises, contacted positive patients or attended mass gatherings were given a medical exam and over 2,000 were tested.

"The twice-a-day conversations with infected employees helped us calculate the severity score. Besides this, arranging beds in public and private hospitals, providing medicines was also done on time. As a result, after eight months of lockdown, out of 2,834 COVID positive employees, 2,692 employees have been cured with a recovery rate of 95 per cent."

27
No. of BEST bus stops that have testing facilties

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