Moneylife Foundation

COVID-19: Moneylife Foundation’s Relief Work Continues

MLF Team 19 May 2020

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to run rampant in India with an ever-increasing number of infected people and deaths due to the virus. With a growing number of cases, our health care facilities are being overwhelmed, with doctors and medical professionals running short on essential protective as well as other basic supplies.

Moneylife Foundation has been continually helping hospitals across Mumbai with essential supplies, fulfilling requests that we have received on a specially created WhatsApp group consisting of doctors from various hospitals. We have thus far managed to provide personal protective equipments (PPEs), face masks, face shields, hand sanitizers, paper bags and oxygen masks. Our efforts have also helped install a ‘Smart COVID OPD’ at several hospitals in Mumbai, with the individual support of certain donors.

This week, we were able to procure more PPEs, 3-ply masks, face shields, infrared thermometers and oxygen masks. They were distributed to Nair Hospital, Shushrusha Hospital (Vikhroli and Dadar), KJ Somaiya Hospital, Cama & Albless Hospital, St George’s Hospital, Sion Hospital, Hindu Balasaheb Thackeray (HBT) Trauma Hospital, Acworth Municipal General Hospital For Leprosy, KB Bhabha Hospital, Cooper Hospital and Rajawadi Hospital.

This week, we have also managed to complete the installation of two new Smart COVID OPDs at KB Bhabha Hospital and Nair Hospital. Such OPDs have now been installed at six major hospitals across Mumbai with the hope that it would help in mass screenings of patients while keeping doctors safe

Although Moneylife Foundation has been trying its best to fulfill requests, we are still not able to meet the requirements of certain hospitals as there is a growing need. Hospitals continue to be understaffed and short on essential supplies. Opportunistic manufacturers have also attempted to take advantage of the situation by raising prices on protective equipment, and masks and it has been a tough battle for us to procure certain items at a reasonable rate even when purchasing in bulk.

With the recent viral video of dead bodies lying unclaimed and wrapped in garbage bags in Sion Hospital, we are now looking at procuring body bags from a certified manufacturer. With the support of our donors, we shall be continuing this COVID-19 relief work till the end of May.

We request individuals and companies to come forward and support our relief efforts.

If you would like to contribute for this activity, please click the link to DONATE NOW.

Please do mark your donation as General Donation, so as to enable us to identify and use the funds appropriately for the Relief Work. You can also share the details on [email protected]

Let's fight this all together.

COVID-19: 6 Major Hospitals To Get Smart OPD Protection in Mumbai

Akshay Naik 15 May 2020

With a pandemic like COVID-19, it has been vital for healthcare workers to protect themselves sufficiently with traditional personal protective equipments (PPEs) while coming in contact with the patient or working in a COVID designated area. A few days ago we had reported on a ‘Smart COVID OPD’- designed to avoid all forms of physical contact with a patient especially when at the preliminary screening stage at a hospital.

Moneylife Foundation with the support of individual donors, has successfully helped install two such ‘Smart COVID OPDs’ at Sion Hospital and Cama & Albless Hospital, while also recently coordinating installation at JJ Hospital. In a few days, we will have these OPDs installed at K B Bhabha Hospital and St George’s Hospital once again with the support of gracious individual and family donors.

Ayu Devices, an IIT Mumbai incubated healthcare startup has designed this ‘Smart COVID OPD’ under the guidance of Dr Ranganath Jhawar, a consultant and maxillofacial surgeon at Hindu Balasaheb Thackeray (HBT) Trauma Hospital and Dr Durwesh Kadri. Dr Jhawar has worked with Ayu Devices and Sevak Trust to set up the manufacturing capability and replicate installation at multiple hospitals.

This OPD essentially has two sealed transparent cubicles – one for the patient, while the other for the doctor. The patient side is equipped with three basic medical instruments – the pulse oximeter, a digital stethoscope and an infrared thermometer. The doctor from their sealed off portion of the OPD, can direct a patient in the use of these basic instruments and has remote access to the readings via Bluetooth on an app installed on their smartphones.

A pulse oximeter can help the doctor examine the pulse and levels of oxygen content in a patient’s body, while the infrared thermometer is useful to check body temperatures without having physical contact with the body. The digital stethoscope provided on the patient’s side is a uniquely designed ‘AyuSynk’ device, which the patient only has to place their chest for the doctor to hear breathing sounds on an app in their smartphones.

The doctor can also make use of the built in extension gloves from their side of the OPD to either examine the patient physically or even take fluid swabs for the purposes of testing COVID-19 infection. At the end of an examination, after the patient has exited their portion of the OPD, the doctor can sanitise the area and the instruments with the simple press of a button. The doctors at Sion Hospital have recorded a short walk-through video showcasing the operability of this OPD as shown below:

These features of the ‘Smart COVID OPD’ while not far advanced too undertake detailed physical examination of a patient are more than sufficient to inspect a patient displaying symptoms of COVID-19. With such a system installed at large hospitals, it essentially minimises the chance of cross contamination between doctor and patient, while also drastically increasing the rate of mass screenings.

This is not only an important addition to doctors’ safety but, as Dr Tushar Palve, superintendent in-charge of Cama Hospital tells us, “it also saves on the use of PPE sets”. Prof (Dr) Aparna Hegde, at Cama Hospital, who also runs an NGO called Armman, finds it “immensely useful in screening patients”. Even the Medical Education and Drugs Department (MEDD) of Maharashtra, who tweeted about our effort has stated the importance of having these OPDs installed at hospitals.

We are at a critical stage with the COVID-19 pandemic, where mass screenings are soon becoming a necessity to document the rate at which the virus has been spreading in the country. With a ‘Smart COVID OPD’ our healthcare workers can continue to work tirelessly screening patients for COVID infections while staying safe themselves. Moneylife Foundation with the support of more donors is hoping to facilitate installation of such devices at more hospitals across Mumbai.

Moneylife Foundation's Covid Relief Efforts

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