At a time when health infrastructure across the country has come under severe strain because of the surge in COVID-19 cases, the Twitter handle of Indian Youth Congress (IYC) chief B.V. Srinivas has become a go-to platform for people seeking help.
In the past two weeks, the IYC has received nearly 60,000 SOS messages from COVID patients, Mr. Srinivas said on Tuesday.
“Based on the demands, we have now identified three categories. People mostly need plasma donors, hospital beds and oxygen cylinders. We have identified nearly 10,000 people who have recovered from COVID and can be plasma donors but there is some hesitancy to donate,” he said.
Apart from counselling such people, the IYC chief said they have even had to bring in donors from Bengaluru and Raipur to handle two emergencies in Delhi.
“We have now set up a coordination centre and about 1,000 IYC members are involved in helping people with their requirements including medicines. We are facing issues in getting ICU beds and ventilators for patients,” he said.
The IYC, that had run a community kitchen for migrant workers and homeless people in Delhi for over six months, is now running a SOS centre that functions for 16-18 hours and is handled by IYC members .
From offering doctor consultations on phone to refilling oxygen cylinders to doing RT-PCR tests, the Youth Congress has tied up with firms who are offering these services to home isolation patients. The IYC also monitors government data on different apps to share the availability of hospital beds in Delhi and elsewhere.
Mr. Srinivas credits his former party chief Rahul Gandhi for asking them to be battle ready.
“Rahul ji had come for our national executive on March 7 and there, he asked us to be prepared as many countries were witnessing a fresh wave. That's when we formed our coordination team to get cracking,” he said.
Asked how do they prioritise among help seekers, he said,"People who tweets to us are usually all emergency cases. Our aim is to help people whose oxygen levels are dipping below 90. Once, we take them to a hospital, the risks get somewhat minimized.”
B.V. Srinivas can be contacted on Twitter @srinivasiyc
