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Mercy Oxygen: The Second wave of Covid-19 has seen the biggest crisis of oxygen, as the daily demand exceeded the availability. Given the huge shortage of Oxygen, MM operated Eight Mercy Oxygen Centres across Bengaluru. Basavanagudi, Bhoopsandra, Mysore Road, Frazer Town, Mahadevapura, Kaggadasapura, Valmikinagar and Koramangala. A huge surge in demand resulted in 10,800+ requests, with a total of 1,316 cylinder concentrator requirements being met. A volunteer team of 24 handled the Oxygen centers.
We are grateful for the support provided by KCVT, Dr. Vasu & team, MCKS, Titan, Mitsubishi Power Systems, NTT Data, World Health & Education group, Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Donatekart & Oxygen for India for providing significant help in procurement of the cylinders & concentrators. Additional cylinders & concentrators were procured to meet the huge gap in demand and supply. MM NGOs bought ~490 jumbo oxygen cylinders , 30 small cylinders & 20+ concentrators during this pandemic.
One of the key differences of the 2nd wave is that it spread into the districts and rural areas much more than in the 1st wave. Oxygen availability and patient support infrastructure in these areas is alarmingly low, as compared to Bengaluru. To respond to this challenge, Mercy Mission (MM) worked to identify NGOs who were working on the ground for Covid response in cities in North Karnataka and provided them with a starter kit to provide oxygen support to patients.
A total of 88 cylinders, 102 concentrators, 41 regulators, 180 pulse oximeters, 605 O2 masks, 220 Face Shields and 367 PPE Kits were despatched to 11 such NGO partners in the following cities – Ballari, Belgaum, Bidar, Davanagere, Dharwad, Gadag, Gangavathi, Hubli, Kalburgi, Kerebilchi and Raichur. We are grateful to NRI donors from Germany, UAE & Singapore for sponsoring the concentrators and oxygen cylinders for this activity.
Mercy Ambulances: To reduce the burden of exorbitant pricing for ambulance services to patients, MM had a total fleet of 8 ambulances equipped with Oxygen to transport patients. Totally, 404 trips have been done in 2 months out of 828 requests. Of these, 220 trips were free for the poor, and nominal charges on a not-for-profit basis were recovered from others to enable operational sustainability. 2 ambulances are now being fitted with Ventilators to enable inter-city ICU transfers. We are thankful to Wipro, who have donated an ICU on wheels ambulance worth Rs 25 lakhs to Mercy Mission.
Mercy Plasma: An initiative to meet the plasma requests for covid treatment by identifying potential donors and coordinating the donation and connecting to recipients separately through hospitals. Since April 2021, the demand surged and MM had received 2,351 requests, of which we were able to help 305 units.
MM NGOs organised a total of 11 Antibody Testing Camps to identify potential plasma donors. We thank all our volunteers who donated for this noble cause. We thank our key partners in this activity – BMST, Jeevaraksha, Victoria & HCG. We stopped this activity on 18th May 2021 when ICMR dropped plasma from the treatment guidelines.
Mercy Online Clinic: MM relaunched a free Mercy Clinic Mobile App to give sound medical advice, right information and guidance to people during Covid 2.0. 15 Doctors enrolled & provided online video consultations. 400+ free consultations were done.