Healthcare Challenges

Posted on: 2020-08-25 07:31:28
COVID19 originated in Wuhan, China last year. COVID19 also known as coronavirus is an infectious disease. After WHO declared COVID19 as a pandemic on March 11 2020. India went under the lockdown for 21 days initially on March 24 2020. India with a 1.3 billion population across various states, health irregularities, unfolding economic and social differences, and different cultural and social values present unique challenges. The number of lockdown days ahead seems to be dependent on the recovery rate and economic criteria.

Current Hospital Setup in India

Health care is one of the most complicated activities in which human beings engage. Hospitals are service organizations. Healthcare services make up a significant portion of national expenses, and thus the nature and quality of services must be explored.

The Pandemic outbreak has set off a chaos in the healthcare system and the fragile healthcare infrastructure has not be able to cope with such an outbreak. The Indian government which is trying hard to tackle this crisis is now are focusing on ramping up its tattered healthcare facilities to face the pandemic.

Every Indian state today has similar priorities: add new beds, improve the capacity of intensive care units, requisition portions of private hospitals, order lifesaving ventilator or a respiratory machine, recruit medical practitioners on contract, weigh in on extending services of retiring doctors and nurses and maintain select government hospitals for Covid-19 patients.

Further means like converting medical colleges and railway coaches into isolation wards, stadiums into quarantine facilities, and readying part of hospitals under defense, central police forces, and railways for Covid-19 patients. The railway factories were asked to immediately assess the feasibility of manufacturing items such as hospital beds, medical trolleys, masks, sanitizers, and, most importantly, ventilators.

There are only 94 ventilators in 128 railway hospitals across India where the ventilator inventory is estimated to be a mere 40,000, clearly inadequate given the rampage created by Coronavirus so far. International experiences have shown that 5-10% of patients need ventilator support to survive.

In India out of all the positive cases 70 percent of cases affected by the infection either exhibit mild or very mild symptoms. Such cases may not require admission to COVID-19 blocks or dedicated COVID-19 hospitals.

Hygiene being one of the most important factors today to deal with health and with Covid19, we need to understand the importance of Hygiene in everything i.e Hospitals, Homes, food, and the topmost important factor of keeping yourself hygienic.

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

Personal protective equipment is the special equipment that a person wears to create a barrier between you and germs. This barrier reduces the chance of touching, being exposed to, and spreading germs. It is necessary for all the health care workers and all the fighters fighting in the frontline to have this as a protection layer.

Child Help Foundation has performed multiple activities where they have guided the Frontline Workers on the knowledge of COVID19, how to avoid infections, distributed masks, gloves sanitizers, and PPEs to the needy.

Nutrition

Good nutrition is very important before, during, and after an infection. While no foods or dietary supplements can prevent COVID-19 infection, maintaining a healthy diet is an important part of supporting a strong immune system. A good and healthy diet is one of the main sources to keep a human body healthy. During this time poor nutrition in childhood is associated with both short-term and long-term adverse consequences such as poorer immune status, higher caries rates, and poorer cognitive function and learning ability. These problems arise primarily because parents do not have enough money to spend on food, not because money is being spent unwisely on different things.

During these tough times where the world fights against COVID19, Children living on the streets require the most attention concerning food and nutrients. They are exposed out in the open where they need proper dietary food to face the risk.

The Child Help Foundation has been on the forefront to ensure food to the needy. Child Help Foundation, along with its Partner NGOs and Volunteers has catered to more than 3 Lakh Individuals with rations and basic medical supplies. During these difficult times, we all need to come together and fight as one for everyone against the risk which we all face.

Kids living on the streets may not have all the privileges which becomes a more difficult war for them to survive this outbreak. .Malnutrition plays a vivid role in almost all the children on the streets. In India 44% of children under the age of 5 are underweight. 72% of infants have anemia.

When food prices rise and supply chains break down, the wages of the poor and vulnerable fall substantially. All the daily wagers and the poor are struggling to fight for a living, first and then fighting against the virus. At such times, it is always the women and young children who are the hardest hit, especially children with deficiencies and low immune system. Notable management intervention is then needed to ward off undernutrition and poverty, which can weaken the immune system and increase susceptibility to the disease.

Child Help Foundation workers, therefore, continue to distribute rations of rice, dal (pulses), wheat, and oil - to the needy and young children, to ensure that they receive their regular supply of nutrients during these critical periods of their life. Rations are being provided from door to door at the homes of the needy.

Today, we have reached a place where we need to think of everyone as family and help them to survive. Doctors, Policemen, Medical staff, Corporation workers, daily wagers, kids, youngsters, and as Indians we all need to stay strong and support each one. It is a phase, it will pass, but it will become a little easier and less scary if we do it together.

In the days to come, as the challenges of healthcare, food becomes too chaotic for Governments and too costly for NGOs to manage, the onus ultimately will fall on the Government. A good amount of infusion of funds is required to set things right so that we are prepared in advance to face such situation. Child Help Foundation is focussed on Medical Emergencies, Education, Water and Sanitation, Menstrual Hygiene, Gender Equality, Zero Hunger, and Calamity Relief.