IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access), a non-profit organisation focusing on bringing legal education to students from underprivileged backgrounds, is organising Covid-19 relief measures for rural West Bengal.
Isolation Centres will be set up by IDIA for people with mild Covid-19 symptoms. The Isolation centres will mainly be located in rural areas of the state which lack basic infrastructure facilities. The Centres will be equipped with beds, medicine, thermometers, oximeters and other basic medical equipment's. A doctor will be available on a video call in the Centres and when the symptoms of a patient exacerbate, they will be moved to a hospital.
The first isolation Centre is being set up in Murokhali Village and it can cater to other nearby villages also.
Considering that the remote villages of Sundarbans are better reached by boats, IDIA is setting up a boat ambulance to ferry the people suffering from Covid-19 to the isolation centres or hospitals. This will be helping to reduce the further spread of infection as currently, people are using public transport facilities to reach healthcare facilities.
The ambulances will also be equipped with oximeters, thermometers, sanitisers, mineral water, PPE kits for the attendants and the boatman etc. The first of such ambulances have already been set up at Purbashripatinagar under Pratharprathima police station.
IDIA has also prepared a database containing information about the hospital bed availability, oxygen availability, doctor consultations, home care best practices, plasma availability and food delivery services. The database is already functional for some districts of West Bengal and can be accessed at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t-Y6NGYltvQWyrtDDtNqh6zs29a6FEhi/view?usp=sharing
The leads in the database are verified and updated periodically by a team of more than 40 volunteers.
A helpline has also been set up to assist people having trouble accessing and using the database. Volunteers will be available on the helpline numbers from 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM. The helpline numbers are:
+91 8972240058
+91 7207161695
+91 8240798829
Users of the service are urged to confirm the veracity of the leads and the responses are used to highlight the most useful leads in the database.
IDIA will also be taking up other relief activities like launching sanitation drives, distribution of masks and sanitisers, blood donation camps and Covid testing camps in rural West Bengal.
The public can contribute to IDIA efforts at: https://www.instamojo.com/IDIALaw/idias-response-to-covid-19-second-wave/
People interested in volunteering can write to arnab@idialaw.org
IDIA is a non-profit organisation that selects and trains students from underprivileged backgrounds to crack top law entrance exams in the country. The organisation also provides scholarships to law students. To read more on IDIA visit: https://www.idialaw.org/
