By Vivek Joseph

Hyderabad: The Montfort Social Institute in Hyderabad on June 4 opened its “‘Free Covid Care Centre” to serve patients from slums in southern Indian city, who have no place to isolate at home.

“Numerous Covid positive patients in the slums have not been able to isolate due to the small size of their dwellings. This has led to the entire family getting infected in many cases,” says Brother Varghese Theckanath, the institute’s director.

The 25-bed facility at the institute’s premises in Uppal aims to solve this problem, the 63-year-old social activist told Matters India.

The Covid-care center provides free accommodation, food, medicines, and medical consultations for patients with minor symptoms. It also offers counseling facilities for the patients and their families.

The center was inaugurated by Bishop Raphael Thattil of Shamshabad, Bethi Subash Reddy, the legislator of Uppal and Brother Bala Showry, the provincial of the Brothers of St Gabriel.

It is the latest program of the Montfort institute’s extensive Covid relief program, Brother Theckanath said.

During the pandemic’s first wave, the Institution maintained ties with slums where its volunteers had worked for decades. It then supplied rations and medical aid to 17,000 families at the cost of 33.2 million rupees.

The center also give small loans to some 500 domestic workers and transgenders who had lost their livelihoods to set up alternative self-employment ventures. These include paper-plate making, goat-rearing, catering and vegetable vending.

Another program was promotion of Covid awareness in 108 slums in the twin-cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad through trained volunteers from each slum.

In the second wave, the Montfort institute continued to provide rations to 1,350 transgenders and others affected by the pandemic. It also helps additional 400 people with livelihood support.

It has also launched an awareness and vaccine readiness program in partnership with UNICEF in 108 slums in Hyderabad, Guntur and Vijayawada.

Volunteers from the institute monitor Covid-19 positive cases in the neighborhood.

Such close ties with slum communities and an awareness of the ground situation has shifted the institute’s focus in the second wave towards providing medical support, Brother Theckanath said.

Legislator Reddy commended the institute’s work in the slums and hailed the Covid center as a much-needed step.

Gopal Reddy, a police officer, expressed happiness that the institute strives to reach out to people who have no facility to isolate and access nutritious food and medical care

Bishop Thattil compared the center to the town of Bethlehem during the birth of Christ, offering a beautiful home for the poor.

The Montfort Brothers’ slum apostolate in Hyderabad began in 1990 when Brother Theckanath started living in the city’s shanty town.

“I lived 12 years there and gradually a religious community was formed – to my knowledge the first Religious Community inserted in a slum in India. The community, called People’s Initiative Network, continues to live in the slum,” Brother Theckanath added.