When state failed to deliver, this NGO helped people breathe during pandemic

By Moin Qazi*
India’s coronavirus crisis is the worst since the pandemic began, and it will probably worsen before it gets better. Hospitals and clinics around the country are facing a shortage of essential supplies, including beds, oxygen, drugs, vaccines, and Covid-19 tests.
Hope shone in this dark tragedy through the work of NGOs—a catchall term for the roughly 3 million nonprofits working across the country —who have risen to the occasion and ramped up aid efforts.They are leveraging their extensive reach with community leaders and large volunteer-base in the community. They all know that a pandemic response rooted in cooperation makes everyone safer.
In the face of infrastructural collapse, civil society groups are stepping forward to meet the needs of the moment. It would not have been possible for the government alone to holistically address the pandemic — develop, implement and ensure that assistance reached the last-mile. We see that every day, in the heroic work of health care workers, first responders, and everyday people reaching out to lend each other a hand.
Mhaswad town is a mere blip on India’s vast geographic radar but the women here are in the vanguard of a social revolution that is transforming the lives of low-income women in western Maharashtra .The harbinger of this transformative movement is the Mann Deshi Foundation set up in 1996 by a trained economist Chetna Sinha who combines her intellect with a rare brand of passion and determination for rural uplift.

The rich social capital built over the years by Mann Deshi is now being harnessed to provide relief to those affected by the current crisis. More than 10,000 frontline workers (including ASHA workers) are creating awareness about the preventive aspects imposed social-distancing restrictions, delivering clear public health messaging, implementing testing and contact tracing and distributing medical protective gear including facemasks and gloves and other medical and relief material. 6,00,000+ masks have been distributed, providing income support to local entrepreneurs involved in manufacturing them and a protective gear to general population. For the least fortunate segments of the population, more economic pain is a virtual certainty.
An already stretched health system has proved incapable of tracing, isolation, and quarantine. Mann Deshi is operating two hospitals in Satara district under PPP model, in collaboration with district government and corporate partners. It has launched this fully oxygenated 350 bed facility designed specifically to house and care for COVID patients.

It is fully equipped with ventilators, jumbo oxygen cylinders, CR system, etc. It has also set up a 20-bed quarantine centre for covid positive patients in Mhaswad. The hospital set up is supported with 2 cardiac and advanced life support ambulances. Mann Deshi is leveraging local medical infrastructure for expertise, equipment, training and triage and treatment services.
The organization has partnered with a private hospital in Mann taluka to provide free CT scan facilities for women and girls. It is also constructing and operationalising its own medical diagnostics and consultancy centre in Mhaswad. It has a dedicated Mann Deshi Oxygen Bank which provides oxygen concentrators to Covid positive patients across Satara district for seven days free of cost. Mann Deshi’s cadre of trained technicians guides family caregivers in handling the equipment. Mann Deshi is trying to get more on-site oxygen production facilities to be built at hospitals.

Some other interventions of Mann Deshi include:

40 portable oxygen machines provided to 30+ covid positive patients
20,000+ nutritious food and dry rations provided to families and migrants
2000+ covid tests facilities through district government
20,000+ community members provided medical support through biweekly health camps
10,000+ women provided with multivitamin supplements

Mann Deshi Foundation's Covid Relief Programme

We are currently seeking donations to support 1000+ marginalised and vulnerable rural families in the Satara district of Maharashtra receive medical treatment for COVID19. Donations will go towards the family’s costs for tests, scans, medicines, food, equipment and any other hospitalisation or medical expenses. We also require funds for purchase of essential medical equipment such as ventilators and the development of our HRCT Scanning & Diagnostics Centre in Mhaswad. Contact :Prabhat Sinha: +91 98229 45698 / prabhat@manndeshi.org.inDevika Mahadevan: +91 98210 32074 / devika@manndeshi.org.in

---

*Development expert

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit.

Gujarat Bitcoin scam worth Rs 5,000 crore "linked" with BJP leaders: Need for Supreme Court monitored probe

By Shaktisinh Gohil* BJP hit a jackpot in the form of demonetisation, which it used as an alibi to convert black money into white in Gujarat. Even as party scrambles for answers of how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP president Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just five days, and how Rs 3118.51 crore was deposited in 11 district cooperative banks linked with Gujarat BJP leaders, a new mega Bitcoin scam, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore has been unraveled.

Counterview

Search This Blog