By Matters India Reporter

Secunderabad, September 9, 2020: The premier healthcare organization of the Catholic Church in India is to provide Personal protective equipment (PPE) to its member hospitals to combat COVID-19.

“The battle against COVID-19 continues in our country. With the number of positive cases and resulting deaths rising in India every day, a lot more people need support and care. Also, building the resilience of the caregivers is crucial to sustaining the battle,” the Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) director-general Father Mathew Abraham said in a press release.

To address this situation, CHAI had conducted a rapid survey among the hospitals within the network, to figure out the capacity to provide care to patients, and the materials required for the same.

As a follow up of the rapid survey, with the generous support of some of its funding partners, CHAI Directorate is providing PPE support for 49 of member institutions for a period of 3 to 6 months.

“Compared to the needs of a massive network like CHAI, what we are providing is only a small fraction. To promote efficiency and transparency, we are using innovation, an online platform called medigate, for rolling out this project,” said Father Abraham.

Besides, CHAI in collaboration with Tata Trust, supported 14 of its hospitals with PPE, directly delivered by Tata Trust.

The Items included in the PPE kit are face masks, 3ply face masks, hand sanitizers, alcohol swabs, hand gloves latex, hand gloves nitrile, N95 masks, PPE suites and Infrared IR Gun Thermometer Reading Temperature.

“As of today, 72 of our Member institutions are involved in COVID-19 care at different levels, some of them having formal collaboration with the local government authorities,” said Father Abraham.

CHAI is to support about 50 Sister Doctors, in collaboration with Sister Doctors Forum of India (SDFI).

“We express our sincere gratitude to all our member institutions that are involved in COVID care and funding partners,” Father Abraham.

Today, CHAI has 3,520 member institutions — 1,409 dispensaries, 913 health centers, and 928 hospitals – with more than 50,000 beds. It also has 210 disability rehabilitation centers, and 90 holistic care centers for PLHIV (persons living with HIV).

Nuns, who work as doctors, nurses, or social workers, head as many as 92 percent of CHAI members. Nearly 84 percent of them serve in medically underserved areas.

CHAI has 11 regional units in India. Its members provide medical care to more than 21 million people in a year – with a team of 1,000 Sister-Doctors; 25,000 Sister-Nurses; 10,000 plus Sister-paraprofessionals.

It also has around 40,000 nuns and priests, who are social workers, and a huge number of lay employees.

Sister Mary Glowrey, an Australian and a member of the Congregation of the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph, founded CHAI in 1943. Over the past 78 years, it has grown into the world’s largest health care organization in the voluntary sector.

She came to Guntur, a town in southern India, in 1920 with a new vision and a definite mission. She founded the association with 15 sisters to provide curative care to people, especially to the poor, women and children.

Sister Glowrey, who died in Bangalore from cancer on May 5, 1957, at 69 years of age, is a Servant of God, the first stage in the canonization process.

During the first 14 years, nuns managed CHAI. As the association grew in strength, its vision got broadened. Promoting community health, CHAI began to see health as a basic human right.