Mission Oxygen to give 800 oxygen concentrators to Delhi hospitals, NGOs

NEW DELHI: Democracy People Foundation has started giving out 800 oxygen concentrators with 10 litre per minute flow capacity to hospitals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Delhi under its initiative Mission Oxygen, a trustee of the organisation said on Thursday.
The Mission Oxygen, started by a group of entrepreneurs of Delhi-NCR, currently has a target to donate a total of 6,000 oxygen concentrators (OCs) by the end of this month to hospitals and NGOs across the country, Varun Aggarwal, founder of start-up Designhill and trustee of Democracy People Foundation, told PTI.
"We have started distribution of 800 OCs to over 100 hospitals and NGOs. These OCs have a flow of 10 litre per minute, which is considered effective in the treatment of Covid-19 patients.
"This is the single-largest donation to hospitals in India till date during this Covid-19/oxygen crisis which instantly helped save 800 lives," Aggarwal said.
Under the Mission Oxygen initiative, Democracy People Foundation plans to give out 6,000 OCs by the end of this month across the country based on a Rs 32.5-crore fund that it has been able to raise till date.
The campaign is driven by many young entrepreneurs running their own start-ups which include Rahul Aggarwal, Varun Aggarwal, Mansha Kaur, Gautam Raj Anand, and Uday Anand. They also include Gautam Ghai, Saurabh Gupta, Barun Aggarwal, Gautam Chopra, Sahil Mehta and Yash Sehgal.
Now, over 250 entrepreneurs, mostly start-ups, have joined the campaign and it has received support from several celebrities, including cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Shikhar Dhawan, bollywood actors Abhishek Bachchan, Shilpa Shetty, Varun Dhawan and Taapsee Pannu and public figure Devraj Sanyal.
"We are inviting requests from hospitals and NGOs for OCs. We are not giving out OCs to individuals as it will not be optimally used. We are giving OCs to both government and private hospitals across several states," Aggarwal said.
Democracy People Foundation, in association with another NGO, has also donated an oxygen generation plant, which is being set up at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Delhi, which shall cater to oxygen demand of 100 beds continuously.
"We started this campaign when all of our family members were falling ill and there was a shortage of oxygen. Initially, we had a target to raise Rs 2.5 crore for 500 OCs but over 33,000 global donors have motivated us to go beyond our target.
"We will have around 5,050 OCs delivered to us by May 20. Earlier, we have delivered 144 OCs to 26 hospitals. We will see the response of donors and situation after delivering a total of 6,000 OCs and decide on the future course of action," Aggarwal said.
The government has also received 3,000 oxygen concentrators as global aid to support the fight against the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, it said in a statement.
China has sent 1,000 oxygen concentrators, Ireland 700, the UK 669 in four consignments, Mauritius 200, Uzbekistan 151, Taiwan 150, Romania 80, Thailand 30, and Russia 20 to the government.