Dear friends,
It was early April when we were witnessing one of the largest humanitarian crises unfold in India due to a second COVID-19 wave. It was heartbreaking, witnessing images from India of patients' families standing outside the Emergency Rooms with their loved ones gasping for air as hospitals struggled with an oxygen shortage. In many cases, realizing that the long journey they took to get to the hospital for their loved ones, came to an end a few minutes ago in the make-shift Ambulance. As much as this was unfolding, it was quickly becoming painfully personal as we learned about more and more of our relatives and friends in Delhi becoming sick with COVID every day; a few needing immediate hospitalizations.
Amongst the escalating fear and grief, there was a sense of urgency that our action or inaction at that moment could impact lives in the coming days. Bhavya and I grew up in India, have worked in Indian hospitals, and could intricately understand the depth of challenge which an already stretched health care system was facing. We invited our physician colleagues on the ground in India from our Health4theWorld chapters to share their perspectives from the frontlines. We heard stories of doctors from the Emergency rooms who had been working non-stop for 10 plus days, 18-hour shifts, dividing the oxygen cylinder outputs to several patients, meanwhile witnessing so many young adults their age pass away rapidly. We called colleagues and friends here in the US and invited others on social media to get involved.
A task force of passionate champions from the US and India was formed. Three immediate areas were identified to assist the struggling health care system via Health4theWorld, arranging oxygen concentrators for high-need settings, distributing home care kits with pulse oximeters, and supporting home-based care via telemedicine and patient-family education initiatives.
Over the course of the ensuing weeks, the surge moved to tier 2 and tier 3 cities and eventually towns and villages in remote and rural settings; and we continued to hear stories from our chapters and other physicians and public health champions on the ground.
Through our chapters and networks on the ground, over 30 critical access and high-need partnering sites were identified immediately, which shared our equity and accountability promise. These sites range from COVID Care centers and teams managing vulnerable patients and their distressing symptoms (palliative care) at home in big metros like Delhi and Bengaluru to critical access hospitals in smaller cities like Lucknow, Jabalpur, Tirupati to NGOs serving remote villages and poor and marginalized tribal communities in Thar desert (Rajasthan), Chattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu. See details of all sites on the map below.
Within 14 days of launch, the first deliveries of oxygen concentrators were made and to date over 100 units have been delivered. Through our networks on the ground, we have been able to get the requested supplies delivered DIRECTLY to hospitals and rural health centers in the most remote areas. We continue to stay engaged with our collaborating physicians at these frontline sites, who have shared several pictures and videos of these supplies impacting lives directly which we have shared below.
As we reflect back on the last two months, we do want to take a moment to pause and acknowledge the innumerable lives that have been lost during this time, including a few in our close circles. We are truly inspired by the stories of hope and resilience, coming from our colleagues from the frontlines many of whom have been affected by the illness themselves. We take some solace in the fact that our prompt and effective response has impacted many lives in the neediest areas.
And even as cities like Mumbai and Delhi slowly reopen, we know that equitable vaccine administration is the only way of effectively keeping future surges at bay and all of us globally safe. Much as we have been witnessing it in the US and other countries, we are hearing similar and widespread concerns of vaccine mistrust and hesitancy from our partners in rural India. At Health4theWorld, over the coming weeks and months, we will be doubling our efforts and focus on public awareness addressing misinformation and myths about COVID-19 vaccines and other key public health best practices. Working with our global chapters, these efforts will go beyond India to address vaccine equity in other countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and within our shores in the United States; as COVID has reminded us that no one is safe until everyone is safe!
THANK YOU ALL for being part of this movement and trusting us and our collaborators on the ground with your time, money, and support. This work would not have been possible without your support. No matter how much you donate, 100% of your donation goes towards programs led by physicians and public health champions in areas of most need globally.
We are grateful for the 'champion community' that came together overnight and helped catalyze this work in so many ways - including our co-founder and CEO, Dr. Bhavya Rehani (CEO), our co-founder Dr. Bill Dillon; and our task force members Dr. Vikas Gulani, Dr. Manpreet Ahluwalia, Amit Singh, Dr. Aditi Chaurasia, Dr. Renu Dhanasekaran, Dr. Mohit Agarwal, Dr. Prachi Dubey, Dr. Shilpa Vellore, Dr. Vidya Sundareshan, Dr. Devika Das, Dr. Srikala Narayanan, Dr. Kamala Tamirisa, Dr. Keith Pereira, Dr. Ananya Panda, Dr. Vidhya Prakash, Dr. Gul Moonis, Dr. Anju Bhardwaj, Dr. Rajan Jain, Dr. Aashim Bhatia, Dr. Sonal Kumar, Dr. Sanjay Yadav, Dr. Nidhi Aggarwal, Dr. Shubhang Bhatt, Dr. Niharika Dixit, Dr. Tanya Rath and others.
Special thanks to our partners at NGO, IAHV (International Association for Human Values) which assisted with the expedited distribution of supplies in India.
It really does take a village and we welcome anyone to join us in this important work, which goes beyond India and touches lives in over 122 countries. Health4theworld has chapters globally in the US, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Africa; many of whom we have been working with for five years and assisting since the pandemic started. At Health4theworld we hope to continue to learn from and grow our community based on two core values, 'love' - respect for everyone no matter who, where they are, and 'seva' - selfless service for those in most need. Please feel free to reach out to me at ankur.bharija@health4theworld.org for any questions or thoughts or to just say hi. Be well.
In solidarity,
Ankur
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Co-founder, Health4theWorld.org
