Mukund Patel
Houston, Texas (USA): Sewa International has spent more than USD 6 million in the last 15 days to procure lifesaving equipment such as oxygen concentrators, ventilators, BiPap, and CPAP machines as part of its ‘Help India Defeat Covid-19 Campaign’ running across the USA.
The philanthropic organization shipped 250 Inogen oxygen concentrators, 1,000 oximeters, and 10 BiPap machines from New York on May 7. UPS Foundation partnered with Sewa to airlift them to New Delhi for free. MedShare, a non-profit that sources and delivers surplus medical supplies and equipment to communities in need, donated the concentrators.
So far, Sewa has spent over $3.5 million to order 7,482 oxygen concentrators and procured 5,118 of them from various vendors in the US and outside. It shipped 2,584, and 2,084 of them have reached India. They are being distributed to government hospitals and Covid-19 care centers and hospitals run by Sewa’s partner organizations.
Another 1,000 oxygen concentrators are in transit and Sewa is planning to ship over 3,000 of them to India in the next two weeks. ‘Shipping large quantities of medical equipment to another country from the US has a lot of logistical challenges. We are optimizing our shipments so that they reach India fast,” Sewa’s President Arun Kankani said.
“Sewa has established a control room in Atlanta and it is managed by 10 Sewa volunteers. They are constantly researching the medical equipment, their vendors, capacity, price, and other details to purchase them or find donors who can supply them to us”.
“We got a phenomenal response from all Americans to our ‘Help India Defeat Covid-19 campaign’. Many corporates, hospitals, and community organizations are calling us to offer help. Sewa volunteers are working hard to connect the dots. A big thank you from Sewa to you all,” Kankani said.
“Oxygen concentrators distributed by Sewa have reached 18 states in India so far, including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Assam, and Uttarakhand,” Sewa’s Vice President for Disaster Recovery Swadesh Katoch said.
“It’s very important to save every life and I am confident that the equipment we have sent to India will ease the shortage of emergency equipment and help Covid-19 patients recover and enable families to protect their loved ones,” Swadesh Katoch said.
Sewa started its campaign to aid India on April 23 amid an alarming rise in the daily number of new Covid-19 cases and fatalities. It has so far raised USD 7.7 million from over 104,000 donors from its Facebook campaign and $4.2 million through its website http://www.sewausa.org.
Sewa International (www.sewausa.org) is a 501 (c)(3) Hindu faith-based charitable non-profit that works in the areas of disaster recovery, education, and development. It has 43 Chapters across the USA and serves regardless of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin.