By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, March 26, 2020: The Christian Coalition for Health, the largest healthcare system in India in the private sector, has offered its facilities to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has threatened the country’s entire population.
“At this time of grave threat to the health and wellbeing of the entire population of India, we the members of the Christian Coalition for Health write to express our solidarity with you and our Nation, as it faces the challenge of Covid19,” says the March 26 letter addressed to the premier.
The letter points out that the coalition has more than 1.000 hospitals with about 60,000 inpatient beds across the country that have over the years provided quality care that is accessible, affordable, rational and compassionate, healthcare to all, especially people at the margins of society.
The letter is signed by Redemptortist Father Mathew Abraham, coalition president and director general of the Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI), Doctor Priya John, coalition vice president and general secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI) and Doctor Sunil Gokavi, coalition treasurer and executive director of Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA).
Father Abraham has expressed the coalition’s solidarity with the prime minster and the nation, as they face the challenges of Covid 19. The letter to the prime minister also state that the coalition will work “in the best way possible for the health and wellbeing of the people of this nation, to fight this pandemic.”
The letter updates the prime minister about the preparations done by the coalition’s member hospitals to face the Covid19 challenges. These institutions, the letter says, have over the past weeks organized coordinating meetings and webinars to help their disaster preparedness to check the spread of Covid19 in their areas.
The letter further states that the coalition’s member hospitals already collaborate with local government healthcare officials in their fight against the pandemic. The coalition leaders also explain that their member hospitals in remote areas now prepare handmade masks out of cloth and Personal Protective Equipment from large plastic bags for their healthcare workers.
Calling for collaborative action, the latter proposes two persons to further coordinate with the government — Anuvinda Varkey, the executive director of the coalition, and Claretian Father George Kannanthanam, CHAI national secretary.
The coalition unites the healthcare networks of various Christian denominations in India such as CHAI, CMAI, EHA and the Christian Medical Colleges of Vellore and Ludhiana.
The Christian healthcare institutions that focus on the rural areas are in the forefront in fighting diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, and HIV. They also work on people with disabilities. More than 1,000 Sister doctors and about 50,000 Catholic nuns serve India’s health field, the letter says.
Covid 19 began as a local outbreak of influenza type attack reported first on December 31, 2019, in Wuhan, China. As of March 26, the world had recorded more than 21,000 deaths among over 470,000 infected with the novel coronavirus, reports ndtv.com.
CHAI on February 26 launched an online Help Desk at its headquarters in Hyderabad to assist those undergoing stress because of Corona Virus crisis. Sister Victoria, a member of Jesus, Mary and Joseph congregation and CHAI president launched the platform, coronacare.life, in the presence of the CHAI board members and staff.
Billion Lives, a social impact tech company based in Bengaluru headed by John Santhosh, developed the necessary platform and tech solutions for coronacare.life. People can come to the site for live chats, audio and video calls, apart from communicating through emails. The site www.coronacare.life is active and accessible and some 30 social work and psychology professionals deal with fears and anxieties about coronavirus crisis. Doctors are ready to answer medical queries.
Meanwhile Project Vision, a Bengaluru-based Claretian social mission coordinated with various national networks to bring together professionals to provide voluntary services.
The Sister Doctors’ Forum of India and Kerala Association of Professional Social Workers provided the required expert volunteers. Rajagiri Hospital specialists Doctors Jacob and Neethu trained the volunteers along with Doctor Sally John from Maharashtra,.
Claretian Father Jojo, working in Macau, China, organized volunteers to speak Mandarin and Cantonese. The Project Vision enlisted volunteers to communicate in German, French, Spanish and Italian, along with most languages in India.