Hyderabad: Doctors ensure Covid care at home for elderly, disabled

HYDERABAD: For the first time in the city since the first Covid-19 case was reported in 2020, a team of doctors and volunteers have come together to pay Covid-affected elderly and specially-challenged persons a visit to their homes and provide them care free of cost.
City-based organisation ‘Help Hyderabad’ launched the service free of cost to help elderly and specially-challenged Covid-19 patients who cannot visit hospitals and are living alone.
The organisation, along with setting up a free quarantine centre, has been ensuring that elderly patients are able to reach out to them for help. “We used to get several requests from children of these parents living in foreign countries like US, Ireland, UK and Gulf to help their elderly parents who tested positive for Covid-19. However, our main aim is to help the elderly and others who are unable to go to hospitals or afford treatment at healthcare centers,” said Saba Qadri, secretary of the organisation.
During the home care visits, the team of doctors and nurses check the patient’s vitals, monitor them regularly and prescribe them medicines based on their medical condition.
“We were able to arrange breakfast also but our focus is mostly healthcare,” she Qadri. The organisation has a big team of doctors and four vehicles. The quarantine centre set up in a private school also has treatment facility for Covid-19 patients but does not have an ICU. If needed we shift the patients to the facility. We are constantly looking out for poor people who are disabled or when the entire family is infected,” she said.
Qadri said that many Covid-19 patients are reluctant to visit hospitals as they fear the huge bills. “We wanted to begin the service during the first wave but could not as the medical community opened up to the idea only recently,” she said.