Combating Corona
By DK Sinha
Patna: It was not less than a dream coming true for Manoj Kumar, an ambulance operator of Rajendra Nagar in Patna, when he got free oxygen cylinders from a Patna based start-up, Hanuman.“Getting oxygen cylinders for free was a dream. When people were getting a cylinder for Rs 70,000, there was no imagination to seek it for free from Hanuman. We will also charge a reasonable price from a patient,” he added.
“Another ambulance operator of Pataliputra Colony in Patna, Ajit Kumar, was not convinced when we asked him to come and collect a free 40 litre cylinder,” informed an employee of Hanuman. Ajit first thought it was a prank call. “When we consistently called him for two days, he came and was delighted to find that our support will help him serve more patients,” she added.
Dr. Niraj Jha, CEO and Founder of Hanuman, says, “When you are determined to combat the situation and have a passion, you will find ways to move ahead.” Recalling how Hanuman started getting distress calls due to sudden rise in medical emergencies from the middle of April, he said, “We braced ourselves and prepared our team to fight the battle. God has chosen us to support humanity in this critical time. It needs to be handled with courage and strength.”
Each query, raised in the call centre, was immediately sent to the respective team. Co-founder Santosh Singh said, “The biggest problem was due to scarcity of oxygen and by April 20, it led us to sheer depression and helplessness. “Every caller was weeping, screaming and pleading for help. Large number of people sought help for hospitals with huge scarcity of oxygen, medicines, hospital beds, ambulances and testing equipment.Hanuman is one of the organisations, which worked as Sanjeevni, for people,” Dr Niraj remarked. The start-up was established during Covid in 2020 serving Bihar, Mumbai and Jharkhand.
Last month, when the Corona pandemic started peaking up, Hanuman team listened to the suffering people’s pleas and met their needs. With the growing number of patients, there was a lack of oxygen in the hospitals as ambulance operators extracted oxygen from ambulances served by the vendors. The prices of oxygen cylinders increased from Rs 30,000 to Rs 60,000.
Hanuman Ambulance Service resolved the problem and many social institutions like Karekeba Ventures, Sapna Foundation, and Mithila Angel Networkcame came forward to help Hanuman through crowdfunding to buy 40 oxygen cylinders. Meanwhile, many people showed their wisdom and courage and with the best possible effort, they continued as warriors to fight against the pandemic and simultaneously helped thousands of people.
Hanuman extended their service from providing oxygen to patients to hospitalisation for Covid patients, providing medicine and food to door steps. Even when the family members failed to touch the dead bodies of their loved ones, our team took part in cremating the dead bodies, Dr Niraj added. Team Hanuman has served more than 3000 people to provide medical advice.
In general, there was nothing like a customer and service provider. People could not understand where to go, which hospital to find beds and oxygen, oxygen cylinders were emptied from the ambulance and the priority for oxygen vendors was to deliver oxygen to the hospitals.
In such a situation, the charges for the ambulance with oxygen increased 10 to 20 times than the normal rates. The private ambulance drivers were not vaccinated under the health worker category because of which people were also very scared, Dr Niraj recalled.
💯👌🙏🙏 great service