Across Valley, NGOs spring into action to help fight pandemic

BOX: Volunteers deployed in hospitals

* Many well-known groups in Srinagar have deployed their volunteers in hospitals to help patients

* Dozens of charitable trusts, organisations, Masjid Aufaq Committees and Bait-ul-Maals have swung into action across Kashmir to provide ration to the poor, including stranded migrant workers

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, April 6

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many NGOs have come forward in Kashmir to lend a helping hand.

While some of the NGOs are donating ration kits to destitute and needy, others have chipped in by providing to hospitals critical care supplies of ventilators and masks, which are the much sought-after item for the frontline health workers.

Many well-known groups in Srinagar have deployed their volunteers in hospitals to help patients.

On April 4, a woman from north Kashmir’s Hajin area was admitted to Srinagar’s Lal Ded Hospital, where she gave birth to triplets. As the lockdown restricted movement, the woman and her attendants were stuck in the hospital. It was the volunteers of Help Poor Voluntary Trust, which runs an ambulance service, who came to her rescue.

“Our organisation provided the woman in distress free ambulance service up to her village in Hajin, Bandipora,” said Mohammad Ali Lone, a senior member of group, who along with other volunteers is out in the field to help the distressed.

Help Poor also provides free of cost medicine to poor people throughout the year.

Another voluntary organisation – Athrout — this week donated six state-of-the-art mobile ventilators to Chest Disease Hospital in Srinagar, one of the designated institutions for coronavirus patients.

With the rise in the Covid-19 cases in Kashmir, there are at present only 95 ventilators available with the associated hospitals and many of them are defunct.

“Yes, we donated six ventilators to the hospital to fight the coronavirus pandemic,” said Bashir Ahmad of Athrout.

The organisation has also donated 10,000 surgical masks, 100 virus protection kits, 100 N95 masks, 300 hand sanitisers, 500 disposable items and 500 gloves to doctors in various hospitals in Srinagar.

As the pandemic has been notified under the Disaster Management Act-2005, the NGOs and voluntary groups are required to coordinate with the divisional or district authorities.

Sources said around two dozen NGOs and groups wanted to chip in at this time.

The groups coordinating their activities with the Disaster Management Authority, Srinagar, include Serving Nations, Dar-ul-Ata and Mukhtar Memorial Society, an official said.

On April 5, the Srinagar administration notified on its Twitter handle that the Young Leadership Club of India had donated 1,00,000 three-ply surgical masks.

Dozens of charitable trusts, organisations, Masjid Aufaq Committees and Bait-ul-Maals have swung into action across Kashmir to provide ration to the poor, including stranded migrant workers.

In Baramulla, organisations such as Majlis-e-Auqaf Islami and Idara Falah-u-Darien are also providing succour to the needy. They have also issued fund-raising appeals.