How corporate India is joining the fight against Covid-19's second wave

Note: The statements, claims and numbers are as per the press releases shared with CauseBecause.

Alive Wellness Clinics
A network of seven skin and wellness clinics spread across Delhi, Gurugram and Chandigarh, Alive Wellness has tied up with general physicians and chest specialists to facilitate tele-consultation for patients. The initiative aims to help provide medical guidance, monitoring and support to patients with mild or moderate illness in a bid to bridge the medical care gap being experienced by a large number of patients. Patients who reach out to the Alive Wellness covid support team are first guided by the internal team of experts, followed by a tele-consultation with a specialist. The patients are closely monitored over 15 days through online consultation by the health guides at Alive Wellness who will also facilitate blood tests, radiology investigations and even oxygen support if needed.

Aster DM Healthcare
Aster Volunteers, the global CSR arm of Aster DM Healthcare, has signed an MoU with Al Shifa Multispecialty Hospital in New Delhi to help set up a 50-bed field hospital to meet the increasing shortage of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients. The initiative is aimed at supporting patients who are financially disadvantaged and in need of critical care. Aster will support the development of the medical facility and ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place, while Al Shifa will be responsible for operating the hospital. The field hospital is being set up at a cost of Rs 87 lakhs – the funds will be used to purchase patient beds, medical equipment and other items needed to operate the hospital.

Bajaj Group
The company has pledged Rs 200 crore towards the current Covid-19 response. This will be utilised to alleviate the immediate on-ground challenges as well as to build capability and resources to tackle a possible third wave. The Group has also aided in the procurement of 12 oxygen plants to provide more than 5,000 LPM of oxygen supply to rural and urban hospitals, along with respiratory support equipment like oxygen concentrators, ventilators and BiPaps to help augment their capacity in treating Covid-19 patients.

BMW Group India
The company has pledged a total of Rs 8 crore towards the fight against the pandemic. Its efforts are focused on augmenting healthcare infrastructure and medical services in Gurugram (Delhi NCR) and Chengalpattu (Tamil Nadu). Associations with government and non-government organisations have been initiated for on-ground implementation.

Embassy REIT
Embassy REIT, India’s first listed REIT and the largest office REIT in Asia by area, along with Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the administrative body responsible for civic amenities in Bengaluru, has set up Covid vaccine centres (CVC) at Embassy Manyata Business Park and Embassy TechVillage for frontline staff working on the business parks. This is being done as per the guidelines provided by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and with permissions from the government. The company is in discussions with the health authorities for implementation of the vaccination programme for employees of the over 100 occupiers across all the Embassy REIT business parks in Bengaluru. The CVC comprises a waiting lounge, registration facility by BBMP officials, a vaccination room, a duty doctor, and an ambulance in case of emergencies.

HCL
HCL is extending support towards Covid-19 care facilities in NCR and this includes assistance in the form of more than 500 hospital beds at various facilities such as the Commonwealth Games Village, Holy Family Hospital, Sama Hospital and Lok Nayak Hospital in New Delhi, and Government Institute of Medical Sciences, Greater Noida Authority. At the Commonwealth Games Village (CWG), in partnership with the Government of Delhi and Doctors for You, HCL has also supported the import and installation of an oxygen plant for the facility which can provide continuous oxygen supply directly to the beds.

Hero MotoCorp
The country’s biggest two-wheeler maker is partnering Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama and the district administration in Haridwar to support a 122-bed Covid hospital as part of its overall pandemic relief initiatives. Under the partnership, Hero MotoCorp is supporting the healthcare infrastructure of Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama in order to ramp up the emergency medical facilities and the capacity of rapid-response teams.

The company has also committed to provide its scooters and bikes for safe, personal commuting of health workers and medical staff in several Indian states. In Haryana and Delhi, it has contributed oxygen cylinders for emergency medical use by hospitals.

Honeywell
The company’s newest initiative is the establishment of Covid critical care centres across five cities that will be equipped with beds, oxygen, personal protective equipment kits, and basic medical infrastructure. Honeywell will provide funding for their NGO partners to build these centres in consultation with state governments in Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu. Honeywell will also fund the donation of over 1,000 oxygen concentrators and 10,000 N95 respirators to these facilities. In addition, 50 ventilators will be donated to government and private hospitals across the country.

L&T
L&T will deliver 22 oxygen generators to various hospitals in India where the scarcity is most acute. These units will absorb air from the atmosphere before converting it into medical-grade oxygen and pumping it into pre-existing pipes in the hospitals. Each unit has a compressor, dryer, oxygen generator and two storage tanks that can cater to hospitals or medical facilities with over 1,750 beds. The units work on the plug-and-play principle. Once all the constituent parts are fabricated, the compressor allows the air to reach a particular pressure within a few minutes. The generator then starts pumping oxygen into pipes. These permanent units will serve the hospitals for the next 10″15 years.

The parts of the first tranche of nine equipment will reach India by May 9. These will be progressively delivered from May 15 to hospitals that are in acute need and do not possess required infrastructure to receive bulk oxygen supply.

Lam Research
The company will donate $1 million (~7.5 cr INR) for Covid-19 relief and recovery efforts in India. The funds will support both local efforts in Bengaluru and humanitarian-aid organisation Direct Relief’s efforts to provide oxygen concentrators and other critical medical supplies to healthcare providers in communities across India.

Lowe’s India
The retail technology and analytics centre for Lowe’s Companies Inc. has pledged Rs 40 crores (>USD 5 million) towards Covid-19 relief efforts. The funds will support the procurement of medical equipment, oxygen concentrators and cylinders, oxygen-generation plants, and vaccination drives for the underserved.

MetLife Foundation
The Foundation has donated USD1.2 million to support relief efforts and alleviate the strains on India’s healthcare system. The donation will be channelled through not-for-profit organisations that are working in close collaboration with central and local governments: Habitat for Humanity, American India Foundation, Healing Fields Foundation and Trickle Up.

Through Habitat for Humanity, the funds will support deployment of around 600 beds, medical equipment and other supplies such as oxygen concentrators and personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, across Delhi, Maharashtra (Mumbai and Wasim), Karnataka (Bengaluru), and Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow and Varanasi). Through its partnership with American India Foundation and in collaboration with other donors, a shipment of 30,000 portable ventilators is being provided, free of cost, to multiple states including Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Delhi. Through Healing Fields Foundation, tele-consultation assistance, food supplies, medicines and other home-isolation and management support will be provided to 500 villages covering a population of 625,000 people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. And in rural Odisha, Trickle Up will provide essential food supplies and healthcare awareness to more than 1,000 of the most vulnerable families.

Paytm
Paytm Foundation is setting up oxygen plants in 12-13 cities. The plants will be directly installed at government hospitals, and this will be done free of cost. Oxygen plants are devices that render possible the production of medical oxygen from ambient air while simultaneously supplying the gas to multiple beds. The company has currently raised Rs 10 crore from people across the country under its #OxygenForIndia initiative and has mirrored the donation amount, making it a total contribution of Rs 20 Crore. Paytm is working in conjunction with other organisations including Elevation Capital and the American Indian Foundation. The donation garnered under the initiative will be used to purchase oxygen concentrators and oxygen plants, costing between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore each.

Paytm Foundation has also sourced over 21,000 oxygen concentrators that will be sent to government hospitals, Covid-care facilities, private hospitals, nursing homes as well as resident welfare associations in mid-May. Additionally, the Foundation is supporting other startups, organisations and enterprises in sourcing OCs from the international market. This will help to minimise the timeline for logistical requirements while ensuring that hospitals and other Covid-care centres receive the OCs sooner. The entire sourcing, regulatory approvals, and delivery will be managed by the Foundation, while the other organisations only need to pay for the cost of the OCs that they will order.

Samsung
The company has pledged USD 5 million (INR 37 crores) as its contribution to India’s fight against the current surge of Covid-19. While USD 3 million will go to the Centre as well as the states of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the balance USD 2 million will be used for getting essential medical supplies to hospitals including 100 oxygen concentrators, 3,000 oxygen cylinders, and one million LDS syringes. These will be offered to the states of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. (LDS or ‘low dead space’ syringes minimise the amount of drug left in the device after injection, optimising vaccine usage. Existing products have a large amount of the vaccine remaining in the syringe after use. The technology has demonstrated up to 20% greater efficiency and if existing syringes were to deliver one million doses, LDS syringes could deliver 1.2 million doses with the same amount of vaccine. Samsung has helped the manufacturer of these syringes increase production capacity.)

Additionally, as part of its people initiative, Samsung will cover the vaccination costs for over 50,000 eligible employees and beneficiaries in India, as vaccine doses become available. This will also include all Samsung Experience Consultants, who work at electronics retail stores across the country.

State Bank of India
SBI has allocated Rs 71 crore to undertake various Covid-related support initiatives. Of this, Rs 30 crore will go towards setting up 1,000-bed makeshift hospitals, 250-bed ICU facilities, and 1,000-bed isolation facilities across some of the worst-hit states. These facilities will be set up in collaboration with government hospitals and municipal corporations of the respective cities.

The bank will give Rs 10 crore to supplement the government’s work in genome sequencing and vaccine research. Additionally, SBI has allocated Rs 21 crore to all its 17 local head offices to address the urgent medical needs of the citizens, including procuring life-saving healthcare equipment and enhancing the oxygen supply to hospitals. The bank will also spend Rs 10 crore in partnering with NGOs to undertake community-based testing, strengthening vaccination drives, creating helplines for Covid-19-related matters, providing oxygen supply and other critical activities.

Stellar Value Chain Solutions
The company has set aside 1.5 million square feet of warehousing space and transportation services to beef up supply of life-saving elements to hospitals on cost-free basis. The lion’s share of the warehousing space will come up in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Indore. A tech-driven consumer supply chain company in India, Stellar Value Chain Solutions will also provide its fleet of refrigerated trucks for transporting Covid-19 vaccines besides facilitating storage of oxygen cylinders, oxygen equipment and oxygen concentrators, forgoing the entire cost.

UBS Group AG
The company is donating $1.5 million to support a range of relief programmes in India. The first tranche of the donation will target the immediate supply of oxygen, medical supplies and medicine to those most in need. In the initial phase, UBS will work with Swasti, a Bangalore-based NGO which designs and delivers health and well-being solutions across India. In stage two, UBS will support COVAX on education programmes and ensuring the equitable procurement and distribution of vaccines. In the third phase, UBS will team up with some of its existing partners in India to help build resilience in local communities and support mental well-being.

How corporate India is joining the fight against Covid-19’s second wave