Tech Mahindra Foundation, Mission Oxygen to set up 50 oxygen plants for charitable, govt hospitals

Tech Mahindra Foundation, the philanthropic arm of IT firm Tech Mahindra, on Wednesday said it is supporting Mission Oxygen and will set up 50 oxygen plants for charitable and government hospitals as part of its efforts to support COVID-19 relief efforts.

The partnership will strive to ensure that hospitals, nursing homes and medical care facilities, especially in tier-2 cities, get immediate access to oxygen.

Tech Mahindra Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Growth Jagdish Mitra said, ''We are aware of the likelihood of the virus coming back in another wave. Therefore, (we) feel the need to support our country to prepare better by strengthening the healthcare system, especially in areas where the cases are to peak in the next 3-5 weeks based on analytics and data modelling.'' To this effect, the organisation is extending its support to Mission Oxygen and partnering with them to set up 50 oxygen plants for charitable and government hospitals across India to augment oxygen availability in the country.

''We are confident that together, we can contribute towards enabling the supply chain digitally and provide immediate access of oxygen concentrators to hospitals, and also set up permanent oxygen facilities for the long run,'' he said.

The goal of this initiative, in its second phase, will be to also enable hospitals to become self-sufficient by enabling the provision of PSA (pressure swing adsorption) plants.

Few of these plants will produce cylindrical capacity of 15 Nm3/hour which will amount to 55 oxygen cylinders per day. This will be able to support uninterrupted O2 supply to 27-30 patients, a statement said.

Mission Oxygen is an initiative by the Democracy People Foundation with participation of 250 entrepreneurs. The initiative has seen Rs 36 crore being raised through donations and 1,000 oxygen concentrators have been procured. Another 5,000 oxygen generators are slated to be procured by May 20.

As part of the partnership, Tech Mahindra will provide technologies to digitally support the campaign and enable their supply chain operations. Additionally, the partnership will also leverage the Tech Mahindra's global partner ecosystem of associates, clients and partners to raise awareness.

As India reels under the impact of the second wave of the pandemic, hospitals in several states are facing acute shortage of medical oxygen and beds. Social media timelines are filled with SOS calls with people looking for oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, plasma donors, and ventilators.

Organisations across the spectrum have come forward to source and donate oxygenators, breathing machines, and ventilators.

OkCredit has launched a website – 'Co-aid.in' – to help in discovery of verified leads for COVID-19 critical medicines and equipment. The portal provides real-time information on the availability of medicines pan-India besides the contact number of the store for making enquiries.

Users can search for availability by either entering the location name or the pincode on the portal. The data on oxygen and beds has been crowd sourced, whereas the data on medicines is from pharmacy stores on OkCredit's platform. OkCredit has plans to further enhance the portal by appending it with other COVID-19-critical resources available in the public domain.

Financial technology firm BharatPe is rolling out a programme to create awareness about COVID-19 vaccination amongst its over six million merchant partners. It will also offer its merchant partners cashback when they scan their vaccination certificate via the BharatPe app.

Besides, it has also launched a COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker feature on its app to facilitate relevant information on COVID-19 vaccination.

A number of platforms like Under45 and GetJab as well as tools from the stables of Facebook and Paytm alert users when vaccine slots open up and then direct them to the CoWIN platform to secure an appointment.

Earlier this week, Ola Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Ola, had said it will provide consumers with oxygen concentrators in partnership with donation platform, GiveIndia.

The service has been rolled out in Bengaluru from Wednesday with an initial set of 500 oxygen concentrators, and the initiative will be scaled up across the country with up to 10,000 concentrators in the coming weeks.

''We're beginning in Bengaluru today and will be rolling this out across the country with up to 10,000 concentrators soon. We hope this will bring much-needed support and relief to those in need,'' Ola Chief Operating Officer Gaurav Porwal said at an event in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Consumers request for an oxygen concentrator from the Ola app by providing a few basic details. Once submitted, the request will be validated and Ola will then pick up the concentrator via one of its cabs with a specially trained driver and bring it to the consumer's doorstep.

Once the patient has gotten better and no longer requires the concentrator, Ola will pick the device back up and return it to GiveIndia to get it ready for the next patient who needs it.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)