By AACC
Note from Vice President, Michelle Ami Reyes: As Covid continues to ravage India, I have been in touch with friends and local missionaries, asking them how they are doing and how we can support them right now. The following is a message from a family in India, who founded a medical clinic to serve Dalits. Due to confidentiality needs, their names and the name of their organization can’t be shared. But their update gives real concrete ways for how to pray for India right now along with a tangible way to donate and financially support those working on the ground there. I hope you will consider supporting their work and praying for the people they are serving right now.
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e have started a COVID team to help manage a mountainous load. A team of six doctors and four people working sometimes around the clock on logistics. This includes getting hard to find medicines, hard to find pulse oximeters, hard to find oxygen tubing, coordinating ambulances, burial and cremation ground, food delivery services, home nursing services, getting plasma, and finding hospital with beds (oxygen, bipap machines, and ventilators) when admission is required. Some days our days start with phone calls at 6 am and ends around 1 am. We’ve spent a few hours training these doctors, getting them up to par with Covid treatment standards and then put them to work. We have more then 60 patients on our list in less than 72 hours since we started, some serious, some mild, but all getting care with everyone working together. About 20% need close monitoring with labs, meds, oxygen, etc., the others are managing well on fever control and rest. Serious and moderate patients are taking a lot of energy and time to manage, having the additional support is vital for them. This virus is serious this time around so everyone is on their toes! Phone calls every day, text messages every 5 minutes, but it's working! Thanks for praying!
We have beyond our team, a host of other volunteers on the ground running around getting all types of supplies, talking to pharmacies, making phone calls, and a dedicated prayer team of 30 people from all walks of life. To make matters more complicated, our state declared lockdown two days ago. Business hours are available 6 am to 10 am only. Rest of the day, no movement is allowed for at least the next ten days. Despite these circumstances, our team and volunteers are rising above the challenges and finding creative ways to make things work. People are stepping forward to give of their time, money, and energy.
Many of you have asked how you can contribute to us and help from abroad. We have some very practical ways you can do that. We have been buying oxygen concentrators to give to patients after discharge from hospital or going to hospital (as many of them have run out) and when they need it at home for treatment. We are sending a number of them to mission hospitals in rural parts of India in Maharastra, Chattisgarh and Orissa. One of our previous partners has procured hospital grade concentrators from Thailand that we are super excited about sending to these Covid wards in different parts of India.
How can you help?
Professionals International is partnering with us to raise the funds: donation for covid relief India
This is a tax deductible donation. Each concentrator costs around $1100 to $1400 depending on the concentrator, ambulances are $5 a minute, which is incredible, and medicines are now getting expensive with low supply high demand situations. We are supporting several hospitals with supplies and all our pts with medicines, labs, and other supplies, including thousands of N95 masks, oxygen tubing, nebulizer machines, IV cannulas, hospital tape, and other supplies.
Thank you to everyone for your care and concern. We have received a huge volume of emails and messages from so many of you! It really encourages us to know that others in other parts of the world are praying too! Thank you!
Photo by Alexander Aashiesh on Unsplash