New Delhi: 29-year-old Priyanka, who is eight-months pregnant, was struggling with a severe Covid infection earlier this month. Her oxygen saturation or SpO2 level had dropped to 78, but the family was unable to find an oxygen cylinder.
It was then that India Cares, a voluntary citizen-driven initiative, came to her rescue. The organisaton arranged a 60 litre oxygen cylinder in just two hours after a family friend reached out to them.
In the last one month, India Cares has helped numerous such people with medicines, oxygen cylinders, plasma, and other essential supplies.
“The satisfaction of saving two lives was immense. There are many such stories out there which help us work hard despite the difficulties we are facing”, says Shashank Kandoi, a Kolkata-based consultant working with the organisation.
The brainchild of IPS officer Arun Bothra, the initiative he started via Twitter, India Cares is now a nationwide team of around 4,000 volunteers.
Shashank Kandoi, who looks after transportation requests at India Cares, said they have delivered essential medicines to 93 severe patients across the country since 19 April.
“There were some cases where the patient was so critical that despite arranging the medicine in no time, they could not be saved. But there have been some good experiences too”, Shashank said.
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The inception
The initiative began in April 2020 after some people reached out to Bothra for help.
“Some people reached out to me for help last year on Twitter, while many also volunteered for help. It organically grew on its own and several people from various professions across the country got together”, he told ThePrint.
Bothra said during last year’s lockdown, people’s demands were very different. “We were supplying ration, helping migrant workers in distress, but this time it has moved to oxygen beds, critical medicines and plasma.”
People looking for life-saving medicines, oxygen concentrators or relief material reach out to either Bothra or India Cares via Twitter. The core group, which also includes other bureaucrats, amplifies the requests and shares them with various volunteer teams.
Manas Nayak, who works with the organisation’s marketing team, told ThePrint that on the day IPS Bothra tweeted that he wanted to help, he received 18,000 direct messages on Twitter. Of these, 12,000 were from those who were willing to help.
When the organisation appealed to people on Twitter regarding plasma donation, within a few hours, 900 people came forward who were willing to donate either plasma or blood.
Last month, India Cares also started a health helpline for Covid patients under home isolation.
The helpline connects Covid patients with mild and moderate symptoms with doctors across the country who answer patients’ queries.
According to Nayak, India Cares has helped around 15,000 people since last year.
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‘People come forward to offer help’
The organisation’s Twitter bio says they “don’t accept any kind of donations”.
Bothra said the initiative has been running on the goodwill of people and their generous attitude towards helping those in need.
“We have a partnership with courier company Blue Dart which does not charge any money. Through the network of volunteers, medicines are transported either by road or air and the airline does not take any money for the same. Another initiative was started in Odisha where Covid patients in need are being provided free meals, which is being sponsored by an NGO. So we do not really need money when people are coming forward themselves to offer help”, he said.
We have a good reach on social media, we amplify it and use existing resources to help people, he added.
The IPS officer also said the team, including young and old, works round the clock to cater to the needs of people. “Some of the young volunteers work and attend SOS calls till 3-4 am in the morning. Many of these are young people with full-time jobs,” Bothra said.
“I have been managing the volunteer work along with my job. The family worries for me, as I am unable to give them any time, but for now I feel that helping as much as I can is my priority until the situation gets better,” Kandoi told ThePrint.
Nayak, meanhile, says the volunteers are the “heroes” of this initiative. “One of our volunteers, Sabita Chanda, single-handedly managed 1,200 plasma requests in Delhi and Mumbai. We call her ‘plasma queen’ now,” Nayak told ThePrint.
As Covid cases surge in rural India, the team is now sending concentrators and medicines to the interiors of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
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