Telangana: Reaching out to patients in rural, remote areas with medicines

HYDERABAD: After helping denizens with getting hospital beds, cremations, oxygen concentrators, among others, the Feed the Needy NGO team is now distributing medicines to those in rural and remote areas.
The team has covered villages in Nirmal, Jagtial, Husnabad, Bhupalpally, Mulugu, and Mahabubabad to date and distributed 200 kits in each of these places. “We got requests for another 800 to 1,000 kits from all these places,” said Sai Teja of Feed the Needy NGO, adding that there is a huge requirement for medicines in rural areas. The medicine kits delivered by the NGO have nine different tablets (almost the same as isolation kits delivered by the state) to treat fever, pain, cold, vitamins, zinc, etc and cost about ₹450. The team has been using money from their pockets and is also accepts funds or medicines from donors so as to distribute the medicines to the needy.
“The home isolation kits by the state are given only to those who have been tested positive. However, the number of tests conducted is limited. So, we are giving these kits to district officials so that they can test and distribute them to those in remote areas,” said Srinivas Bellam of the NGO.
Feed the Needy team said that they have been handing over medicines to district collectors, officials of the health department and have been following up whether the kits are reaching those in need by contacting volunteers at ground level. They said that residential welfare associations, pharmacies, and others are coming forward to help the poor.
Their journey of distributing medicines in rural areas started with the Nirmal district after they received a request from a police official. They said that they have been receiving several such requests ever since from various corners of Telangana.