COVID Crisis in Bengaluru: Philanthropic arms extend to help Karnataka govt

 

As the number of COVID cases in Bengaluru are set to touch a whopping 10 lakh mark, one of Bengaluru’s leading NGOs Bal Utsav has proposed the setting up of COVID Care Centres across the city. The founders of the organisation Ramesh Balasundaram and Binu Verma are waiting for approvals from the Karnataka Government to kick start the initiative with at least four such centres, each housing 100 beds.

Meanwhile, OLA Foundation has partnered with Give India to provide oxygen concentrators to those in need in Bengaluru. The organisation has kickstarted the service with 500 concentrators.

The Karnataka government has been grappling with shortage of beds, oxygen and vaccines. “If you look at the existing infrastructure, caseload and shortage of beds, there are 1.2 crore people in Bengaluru and only 12,000 available beds. That’s a skewed ratio. And we wanted to do something responsible,” said Ramesh.

The minimum cost per suggested Bharat COVID Centre is Rs 3 crore. “We are waiting for commitment of resources. We have signed up with hospitals too. Once the paperwork is ready, it will take around 2 weeks for the centre to function,” said Ramesh. Bal Utsav is looking forward to work closely with the government, while stressing on the fact that they are not financially dependent on the government.

 According to reports, there is a requirement of around 1239.17 tonnes of oxygen in the state as COVID cases rise exponentially. OLA driver, through the app, will collect the concentrator depending on the nearest available one and deliver it to the consumer. The patient can return the device once he or she recovers. The patient will have to pay a refundable amount of Rs 5,000.

“This strategy is effective so that those in home isolation with low oxygen saturation levels can rest assured that they will have access to a concentrator. This is the need of the hour. I thank OLA and Give India. By doing this, dependency on hospital will reduce,” said deputy CM Ashwath Narayan.

With corporates, individuals and NGOs coming forward, Ramesh and Binu want to make their project an open-source solution where other corporates and individuals can get together and adopt this proposal.

It’s time the public and private entities of Karnataka get together to fight the existing COVID crisis in Bengaluru. Let’s stop putting the onus on government alone.