Volunteers filling gaps in J&K's fight against Covid-19

Faced with healthcare shortages and minimal outside aid, Kashmir’s community groups and volunteers are fighting Covid-19 by stepping in where official efforts fall short.

These cash-strapped local NGOs run ambulance services, provide oxygen support to critical patients, help with doctors consultations and food till the patient recovers. Volunteers even carry out burials for Coronavirus victims when family members can’t or won’t.

A few days back volunteers of Social Reforms Organisation (SRO), Kashmir, received a distress call from a Covid-19 patient, whose condition was deteriorating. The volunteers rushed with oxygen support to the elderly patient till he recovered.

“The four-member family was Covid positive and three of them were hospitalized. The only patient who could not be hospitalized was a 65-year-old man. We not only provided him with oxygen support but helped with doctor consultation and arranged food for him till he recovered,” said Mohammad Afaaq Sayeed who heads the SRO, Kashmir.

Also read: Vaccination of people in 18-45 age group will not start from May 1 in J&K: Administration

There are dozens of volunteers like Sayeed who are on the forefront of providing succor to the needy patients in this hour of tragedy across the Valley.
Like the SRO, another NHO Help Poor Voluntary Trust (HPVT) is ferrying critical patients to hospitals and in some cases helping in stabilizing the patients, who could be managed at home.

“We have been doing health related services for years, but in the prevailing situation, our all focus has been on Covid-19 related services. From ferrying patients to supplying essentials like oxygen and medicine, our volunteers are working round the clock,” chairman of the HPVT, Farooq Bhat told reporters.

These volunteers also help people to take the bodies of Covid-19 patients for burial and assist in burials. Last year, the SRO, Kashmir also arranged burial for three non-locals.

Responding in emergencies is nothing new for community volunteers and NGOs in Kashmir as in the earthquake of 2005, devastating deluge of 2014 and other situations they did commendable community service.

With thousands of new Covid-19 cases reported daily in J&K, volunteers and community groups continue to be the cornerstone of the pandemic response.

Dr Arshad Hussain, a renowned psychiatrist and professor at Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar, said the crisis is not new to Kashmir. “People here have evolved to help each other even in the worst times, instead of dwarfing into self-centred survival mode,” he told DH.