As Tamil Nadu is battling the horrendous second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unified command room in Chennai is not closing its eyes as it is the centre that attends emergency calls and disseminates guidelines and measures to beat the pandemic and addresses the crisis situation that arises over the dearth of hospital beds and oxygen. The command room is a government-installed help centre to address the availability of beds and oxygen supply for the Covid hit patients. 

The executives of the centre can be reached by dialling 104 and as it is tasked with supporting the government in addressing the health crisis, the newly formed administration in the state is taking extra care and enhanced measures to respond to the distressing calls. Chief Minister MK Stalin has recently announced the command centre as the war room of the government in combating the pandemic. After winning the recently-held assembly polls, Stalin has visited the centre to understand the functioning of the command centre.

On Friday, Stalin took everyone at the war room into surprise through his visit. According to reports, the Chief Minister had visited the centre at around 10.30 pm on Friday with the health department officials. What more surprising is that he addressed the call reached through the helpline. A woman named Archana Padmakar had called the helpline 104 when Stalin was at the centre and she asked for a hospital bed for her 78-year-old aunt. 

Archana didn't expect that she would be responded by the Chief Minister himself. A staff of the centre had picked the call and handed it over to MK Stalin post which Stalin spoke to Archana and besides allotting a bed at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai, Stalin has also wished her aunt a speedy recovery. Stalin's gesture has garnered a huge commendation from several social media users. 

The reports say that Archana had told the staff at the centre that her aunt was receiving treatment at a private hospital in Vanagaram but she was in need of tertiary care as she was in a critical condition. During the call, Archana didn't realize that she is speaking to the Chief Minister, which has become a moment of a surprise amid sorrow. Her aunt was later shifted to the Rajiv Gandhi Hospital in Chennai for further treatments. 

Speaking to a news agency, Archana said, "I didn't realize that I was speaking to the Chief Minister though he introduced himself twice. He asked me to calm down and allotted a bed for my aunt. When the helpline staff later confirmed that it was the Chief Minister, I requested to speak to the Chief Minister again and thanked him." After visiting the centre, Stalin took to Twitter and wrote, "I visited the state's COVID-19 unified command centre (war room) in Tamil Nadu, which monitors and regulates beds, medicine stocks, and oxygen. COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu is under control."

The Unified Command Center functions at the National Health Mission office and the staff will be attending to live updates. The centre will monitor both government and private health care hospitals, especially in Chennai to provide support to enhance bed capacity and oxygen cylinders for Covid patients. The centre was established earlier this month and is manned by health experts and government officials.