Indian American doctors pitch in with free telehealth advice during India's Covid-19 crisis
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New Delhi, May 12: As the coronavirus crisis in India spirals out of control and its health care system crumbles, the Indian diaspora in the US is pitching in to help. Sitting thousands of miles away, unable to be there physically to help and feeling the grief and desperation of their loved ones back home, Indian American doctors provided friends and family with medical advice over phone and video calls.
But as the avalanche of Covid-19 deaths and cases continues to cripple the health care system during the second wave, the doctors are going beyond helping just family and friends. Some of them are now staying up nights, when it is daytime in India, to advise other coronavirus patients and raise money for medical supplies.
"I didn't have to pay for my five years of medical school education in India, except for student union fees. So we all feel like we owe it to India. Some poor farmer must have paid taxes for us to go to medical school free. I have always felt I owe something back ... and I think most of them see it that way," said Dr. Kalpalatha Guntupalli of Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Prasad Garimella's 48-year-old younger brother died of coronavirus in India. Emotional when speaking about him, Garimella said his brother was the anchor of the whole family, and said other family members are also sick with Covid-19. And although he's sitting far from them in Georgia, he jumped in to help by advising them over the phone. "In fact, I deal with this on a daily basis and have a standard format that I have made. So depending on what stage or what phase they are in, I can give them the right advice," he said.
A pulmonologist with the Gwinnett Pulmonary Group, Garimella specializes in treating patients with lung issues. For the patients he's helping in India, he asks them to fill out a simple template that includes basic information such as vital signs, oxygen symptoms, CT scans, lab results and underlying health conditions, which they send him via WhatsApp. But it's not just his friends and family that he's treating. He and other doctors are working together to try to help any Covid-19 patient in India who reaches out for help.
India has been recently reporting more than 400,000 Covid-19 cases daily and at least 4,000 deaths. And with oxygen, medical necessities and vaccines in short supply, the principal scientific adviser to the Indian government, K. VijayRaghavan, is warning that a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is "inevitable" in India.
"A phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus, but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur," VijayRaghavan said at a news conference, asking authorities to be prepared for new waves. Sewa is working on procuring more from multiple suppliers around the world to ease oxygen shortage caused by the surging numbers of Covid-19 cases in India. The organisation said it has started the “Help India Defeat Covid-19” campaign to ship oxygen concentrators to Indian hospitals. (stroy credits- CNN)
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