4. DISCUSSION
During this COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the lockdown period, telemedicine can play a crucial role in providing correct and appropriate medical advice to the patients in their homes, avoiding close contact and overcrowding of the outpatient clinics and thus preventing the further spread of COVID-19. Several healthcare facilities worldwide have established telemedicine clinics with good experience in providing support to healthcare workers and medical advice to the patients using technology.7 Based on the emerging evidence regarding the effective and efficient use of telemedicine healthcare service, various countries are now approving the policies and procedures for the potential implementation of this service in different specialties.8 In our study, we found that the majority of the calls were received during the lockdown period (data not presented). When the lockdown was eased, the number of calls received by our telemedicine service decreased as more people started visiting the outpatient facilities of the two hospitals. The majority of the calls were received by medicine and dermatology specialties. Several other studies across the world have also demonstrated that telemedicine services not only provide fast healthcare delivery to the people but are also cost-effective.9 However, one of the major limitations of the implementation of telemedicine services, epically in developing countries such as ours, is the limited access to the internet as well as the limited access to the technology in remote areas.