Even as the lockdown necessitated by the spread of COVID-19 made the unorganised workers go jobless and the absence of food outlets forced people to starve, good Samaritans in various forms came to their rescue to meet their requirements.
Several charitable and social organisations have come forward to donate whatever is required, right from food packets to buttermilk sachets, masks to sanitisers. The policemen are at the centre of this all on two counts. On one hand, they are streamlining crowd, managing logistics and distributing essentials to the destitute people, while on the other, the constables and home guards are the receiving lot, as social activists prepare breakfast and supply them in packets along with water bottles to them.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), under the banner of its social service arm ‘Seva Bharati’, distributed food packets to urchins and alms seekers on the roadside at Anna Rao circle.
The members also gave water bottles to policemen on duty. Similarly, a local cloth merchant gave parcels of home-cooked food to the homeless living in and around Sridevi Complex on Tilak Road.
Meanwhile, the medical fraternity has agreed to extend services in tackling the COVID-19. Private doctors, who have so far stayed or been kept away from the process, volunteered to do their mite.
They have collectively decided to use a private hospital, located somewhere on the city outskirts, to be used as an isolation-cum-treatment centre. “We have agreed to the proposal by Collector N.Bharat Gupta to get ready an isolation and treatment facility by private doctors. We are ready to extend our services, if the government provided sanitary and personal protective gear to us”, said D. Sreehari Rao, former president of Indian Medical Association (IMA) and former president of Andhra Pradesh Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (APNA).
Dr. Rao also suggested that the TTD’s ‘Srinivasam’ and ‘Vishnu Nivasam’ pilgrims’ accommodation complexes, equipped with beds, and currently lying idle due to lack of pilgrim movement, could be converted into makeshift hospitals by adding ventilators and oxygen cylinders.
