Covid-19: Mumbai community war rooms help citizens avail medical resources

Volunteers at the war room set up by the Dawoodi Bohra community at Saifee Burhani Upliftment Project in Bhendi Bazar. Pic/Suresh Karkera

AMID the hustle for Covid-19 treatment, citizens have been helping each other for a number of things. To ensure more coordinated efforts, community war rooms have been helping people with beds, oxygen, ration, medicines, etc.

Bhamla Foundation's war room

The Dawoodi Bohra community's war room at the Saifee Burhani Upliftment Project premises in Bhendi Bazaar helps with oxygen, gives real-time updates on beds, helps serious patients. "We are a team of around 60 comprising doctors, volunteers and local authorities to give timely medical advice or beds," said Shabbir Merchant, the war room's coordinator.

"We are focussing more on counselling to ensure people don't panic and have help at hand in case someone dies," Merchant said. They also help people find burial places for the Covid-19 deceased.

A similar war room has been created by Bhamla Foundation in Bandra to help with beds, oxygen and medicines. Five people work in the war room from 10 am to 10 pm. The war room was set up when the second Covid-19 wave peaked. "Apart from medical help, our main focus is to provide ration kits in slums for daily-wagers. We get hundreds of calls daily for the ration kits," said Asif Bhamla, founder of Bhamla Foundation.

MNS's war room in Mulund operates 24x7. Pic/Rajesh Gupta

Need more of these

The Bohra community's war room prepares unwell people's documents with details of their condition and forwards them to doctors treating Covid-19 patients. The doctor's advice is then passed on to the patient. "The disease is unpredictable, it goes from mild to moderate to severe. Patients need the right advice at the right time based on their medical history to recover well. Our phones are flooded with messages and reports. Such community war rooms are needed to coordinate assistance. We need many more of these apart from the government's," said Dr. Abizer Mankad, consulting physician and diabetologist, Saifee hospital.

Food for those in isolation

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is setting up a similar war room in Mulund. It would also help those in isolation. "We were getting hundreds of calls for help during the peak. Now they have reduced to 20-25 per day. MNS workers in different shakhas are working 24x7 in three shifts. The morning shift workers visit all hospitals to get an update on beds, the same is conveyed to those in need. We are also providing food to those in home isolation," said Rajesh Chavan, Mulund vibhag president, MNS.