Volunteers and NGOs have donned the mantle of medical professionals in Ghattuppal village of Chandur mandal in Nalgonda district where close to 170 persons have officially tested positive for COVID-19 infection, and six persons reportedly died.
An isolation centre being run in the village through crowd funding is providing beds for 35 patients. Several others have been isolated at homes, with medicines and food being provided from outside.
Even for tests, the villagers are forced to depend on philanthropists, as the number of kits provided by government is insufficient.
Efforts by the volunteers began about two weeks ago, after a second COVID-19 death in the village rang alarm bells.
People made beeline to the nearest primary health centre 25 kilometres away, only to be told that mere 25 rapid tests were being conducted per day for the whole mandal.
Testing kits
“We called Dial 100 and complained about the situation. On May 19, district medical authorities arrived with 50 kits. MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy sponsored 100 more kits, and on May 19, we took 111 samples. Of them 40 turned out to be positive,” narrated B.Maheshwar, a social worker and native of Ghattuppal, who is spearheading the voluntary work.
Two ANMs and six ASHA workers, together with a lab technician from the same village who works in Hyderabad helped conduct the tests. So far, over 600 rapid tests have been conducted, with 400 kits sponsored by Mr. Rajagopal Reddy and 200 supplied by the government.
“A group of us started an isolation centre too so that those infected can stay away from families. Stigma surrounds the disease, so no one admits to testing positive. Several in the village are getting tested in Hyderabad, whose details are not with us. Government should take up a fever survey here,” Mr. Maheshwar says.
Crowd funding
A ‘Ghattuppal Corona Sahaya Nidhi’ has been started for the crowd funding initiative, where alumni from the village’s school are donating via a social media group. Apart from cooking and providing food for the patients at the isolation centre, the volunteers, numbering about 20, are also supplying nutritious food to about 100 families in self isolation.
Medicine kits numbering 500 have been supplied by an NGO ‘Street Cause’, while volunteers visit each infected household with pulse oximeters to check oxygen saturation levels of patients.
“To bear the hospitalisation cost for a village youngster at Hyderabad, we generated funds to the tune of ₹ 16 lakh, partly from ‘Milaap’, a crowdfunding platform, and partly through direct donations,” Mr. Maheshwar shared.
Absence of doctor for consultation, however, renders all their humanitarian efforts insufficient. Though the isolation centre has two oxygen cylinders with 35 litre capacity, they are not being used for the patients in distress, due to unavailability of doctors and medical staff. Instead, patients in requirement of oxygen are being kept on nebuliser.