Helping India Breathe
- bey0ndM@gz!ne
- November 5, 2021
- Default, Trending
- 0 Comments
“Every day we hear of a new person dying of COVID,” Kanika said. “People call us several times a day asking whether we have any access to oxygen. This made me and Rohit think that even though we are far away and feeling helpless, there must be something we can do.”
Kanika and Rohit Mediratta are not seasoned charity workers. Nor do they have a background in logistics. They’re a regular couple from the San Francisco Bay Area. What makes them special? They sprung into action after seeing the plight of loved ones falling victim to the virus back home.
The Medirattas made it their moral duty to help ship oxygen concentrators from China to India by working with charities. By the time I interviewed Kanika for my Wonderful Women doing Wonderful Work (#WWWW) series, they had already raised 224 units of 5-liter concentrators.
My curiosity piqued. If nothing else, I wanted to broadcast their good work to the international Indian community. This could help us at least point to their charity effort.
The moment I socialized my interview with Kanika, two things happened. First, China stalled flights to India. That meant a shipment of 100 units of concentrators sourced by Mediratta got stuck. Second, a childhood friend Atul Pahwa called me from Lausanne with a unique request. He too had sourced some 3,000 oxygen concentrators to send to India. But since they were coming from a Pennsylvania-based company, he asked if I could use my network to help with shipping from the US.
The solution came from India itself through my brotherin-law, Sandip Hora. He had years of experience in sourcing emergency supplies for the Indian army. I figured he would have the wherewithal to sort out the Medirattas’ China shipment issue as well as Atul’s logistics needs. I was right. Sandip jumped into the foray and began helping before I could even complete the request.
Within a few hours, we had formed a group of well intentioned Indians, located in different parts of the globe, all working towards this intense covid relief activity for people back home. Each of us focused on a different part of the solution – from sourcing concentrators, identifying shipping and distribution logistics, and fulfilling orders from friends and relatives in India, to raising awareness in the interest of raising charitable funds to send to
needy hospitals.
While it was admirable to see other Indians from across the world band together to help, it also became clear that the Modi government’s mishandling of the virus had resulted in a covid crisis of unparalleled dimensions. Additionally, the chatter on Whatsapp groups pointed to a very specific reason for people’s involvement. This time it had hit very close to home because so many of us lost family members to the virus.
Even with this help, we’re only reaching a tiny fraction of people. What does this mean then for the millions of other Indians who do not have access to basic health services? What about those in rural India?
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought forth several shortcomings of India’s healthcare infrastructure. We continue to face challenges in responding to the needs of the most disadvantaged members of society. Modicare, which promised to deliver health care services to 500 million Indians, the poorest in society, remains underfunded and has failed to deliver.
Healthcare equity in India faces challenges at every possible level: service delivery, financing, risk protection. Across the board, we see massive imbalance in resource allocation, access to quality health services, inadequate human resources for health, high out-of-pocket health expenditures, and continued health spending inflation. Even today, India’s Domestic General Government Health Expenditure for a billion Indians amounts to a paltry 1% of its GDP – among the lowest for any major economy.
So, who is to solve this problem then? Should India continue to rely on the government? Or is it up to international South Asians to recognize its failure and move beyond it by uniting with the global community to figure out how to push the health care agenda back home? Humanitarian covid
relief initiatives aside, is it even realistic for us to start improved healthcare equity in India? Over the course of last year, non-resident Indians have plowed millions of dollars into providing relief for those affected by the pandemic. And this question has come up again and again.
As an international Indian with deep roots to the motherland, I want to answer in the affirmative. Yet, I find the practical aspects mind-boggling at best. Still, as Kanika Mediratta said during her interview, “No is not something that is in my vocabulary.”
