The current wave of COVID-19 is nothing closer to what it was last year. It is aggressive and taking down elderly, young and children equally.
Shortage of beds, oxygen cylinders and medication has put India on spot as the epicentre of the pandemic. In this grim situation, NRIs Rohit Mediratta (42) and his wife Kanika (42) took the initiative of raising funds and arranging concentrators for India.
Kanika and Rohit, who have been living in Palo Alto, California, for the past eight years, got to know about the acute shortage of oxygen for patients while speaking to the latter’s brother who is a neurosurgeon at a prominent hospital in Delhi.
"His hospital had stopped all routine admissions and was conducting only life-saving emergency surgeries. There were other reports of critically ill patients being turned away from hospitals because of oxygen shortage. We felt helpless and started looking around to see what we could do sitting so far from India," says Kanika, who works for First Republic Bank.
In the third week of April, they launched the campaign on a GoFundMe page to raise funds. So far, their campaign has managed to raise over USD 500,000 (over Rs 37 lakh) including direct donations to their partner, Save Life Foundation.
"We discussed what we could do and what this would mean for our family. We both have full-time jobs and two young children of two and five years old. But this felt bigger than us and we were both certain that if we could save a life, make even a small difference, then the efforts we were taking on would be worthwhile," adds Rohit, Senior Director of Engineering, Nokia Inc.It took them about 24 hours to start the initiative.
"We first identified a supplier for oxygen concentrators. I called about 20 manufacturers, distributors and suppliers, before we got a lead. My father Madhusudan Thakar who lives in Delhi, sent out a message to his IIT group, and one of his contacts introduced us to Piyush Tewari - the founder of SaveLife Foundation," adds Kanika.
Kanika says, "Initially we struggled to get the word out. Rohit and I had never done a fundraiser before and we didn’t know what information would be needed. People questioned if this was a scam, others questioned whether these life-saving units would even get to people in need or just be hoarded by people with influence. Over the course of the last few days, we have gotten help from people of Indian community living in Singapore, UK, Switzerland, and India."
Kanika's cousin Monica Khosla helped them create a website - covidreliefindia.com to post updates. Rohit says, "Mukesh Aggarwal - an engineer who recently created a Bot app to alert people in the Bay area about Covid vaccine availability - helped us restructure our Go-fundMe page and provided advice on how to expand our reach. Congressman Ro Khanna tweeted about our initiative and various media networks have helped us spread the word and gain traction."
In partnership with SaveLIFE, they could procure 224 oxygen concentrators, of which 140 have been delivered and are operational at the Burari Hospital.Managing office work and the initiative has not been easy.
"A lot of coordination happens late night and early mornings because of the different time zones. We had very little sleep in the last few weeks, but can’t complain. Our efforts are nothing in comparison to those of the doctors, nurses and families of loved ones dealing with the Covid crisis in India," shares Rohit.
With the focus on providing medical equipment to boost the supply of oxygen in Delhi, the couple plan to continue raising awareness and funds for the campaign.