Companies shut ops to supply oxygen, provide bikes to medics fighting pandemic

NEW DELHI: As coronavirus infections rip through India, companies — both big and startups — are pitching in with everything from setting up makeshift hospitals to airlifting oxygen concentrators to making donations to procure medicines and ambulances. Joining the growing list of contributors in India’s fight against the second wave of Covid are Facebook, IBM, Hero MotoCorp, Vedanta, Paytm, SpiceJet, Intel, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai.
Facebook promised $10 million to emergency rescue efforts. “I’m thinking of everyone in India and hoping we get this virus under control soon. Facebook is working with Unicef to help people understand when they should go to the hospital and giving $10 million to emergency response efforts,” said Facebook CEO Marc Zuckerberg in a post.
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Salesforce pledged $1 million for medical equipment, creating vaccine awareness and community isolation centres. IBM too announced funds for oxygen concentrators — medical devices that concentrate oxygen from ambient air — and emergency hospital beds, and Intel said it will be delivering technology and resources to support critical medical needs.

Vedanta pledged Rs 150 crore to create 1,000 hospital beds across 10 cities equipped with oxygen support. Paytm placed an order for importing 3,000 oxygen concentrators from the Rs 10 crore it raised. Maruti Suzuki said on Wednesday that it will stop manufacturing cars in its Haryana plants between May 1 and 9 to make oxygen available for medical purposes.
Hero MotoCorp contributed oxygen cylinders to hospitals. Additionally, it will provide PPE kits and motorcycles & scooters to health workers in several states, including Delhi-NCR, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Hyundai pledged Rs 20 crore for setting up oxygen-generating plants in hospitals and installing medicare facilities in most affected Covid states.
It will also extend support to hospitals in manpower and operational cost for three consecutive months and will augment its mobile medical units and telemedicine clinics in rural areas to break the chain of spread, Hyundai said.
Reliance Foundation will set up a 1,000-bed Covid care facility with oxygen supply in Jamnagar. “Additional healthcare facilities are one of the most critical needs of the hour. The first phase of 400 beds will be ready within a week,” said Reliance Foundation chairperson Nita Ambani.
Industry body Ficci, along with its partner BVMW (German Association of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) will procure 1,500 oxygen concentrators to combat the current crisis.
“The first batch of the freight containing the medical devices and accessories is being airlifted from Frankfurt Airport today,” both said in a joint statement. SpiceJet airlifted 1,000 oxygen concentrators from Hong Kong to Delhi. Linde said so far eight cryogenic containers have arrived in India and “many more are expected over the next few weeks”. Cryogenic containers are tankers to carry liquid oxygen over long distances.