Newsletters
Issue 1 | August 2021
The Medical Relief Initiative is a social impact project focused on improving rural healthcare delivery mechanisms by enhancing and supporting curative care at rural hospitals and providing critical support to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) to enable critical medical services to local populations – improving medical outcomes and saving lives.

GENERAL UPDATES

Strategic partnerships with 2 rural hospitals with signed and stamped MOUs in place:

  • In Maharahtra, St. Luke’s Hospital (SLH) with a 10 bed ICU facility in Shrirampur taluka around 100 kms from the Ahmednagar city.
  • In Karnataka,G. Vasudeva Pai Memorial Hospital (GVPMH) which is building a new 6 bed ICU facility in Moodbidri taluka around 35 kms from Mangalore city.

SLH, a 100 bed hospital, was established in the 1950s and caters to the medical needs of mostly the BPL (below poverty line) citizens from Shrirampur and the surrounding 54 villages. GVPMH, a 35 bed hospital was established in 1978 and caters to the medical needs of the citizens from Moodbidri and the surrounding 28 villages. Both hospitals boast of experienced doctors and nursing staff and are well known in their local community. Equipment evaluation focused on understanding the needs and requirements of the ICUs at SLH & GVPMH. We use a rigorous and comprehensive approach to identify the medical equipment required to offer the best intensive care to patients. This due diligence by our team with regular consultations with hospital management and our medical committee has resulted in identifying a set of 'best-fit' medical equipment vendors.

“I feel so good that there’s going to be a strong association and support to the hospital at least for 3 years. It will do lot of good to the people of our area. Congrats for this humanitarian initiative against the backdrop of Covid 19. May God bless you all and all your endeavors.”

- Sr. Philomina Chalil
Director, St. Luke’s Hospital.

Procurement of best fit solutions involved engaging and negotiating with medical equipment vendors to procure the best equipment and associated training services for the ICU staff at the hospitals. As of this date our negotiating team have managed to get highly discounted prices and have already placed orders worth over 28 lakhs. Over the next few weeks we hope to place additional orders worth around 20 lakhs. Our procurement budget for both hospitals is around 50 lakhs. Our goal is to provide our partners with high quality products in a timely manner and, to date, the following orders have arrived and deployed at the hospital:

  • SLH – 2 BREAS Vivo 3 Non Invasive Adult / Paediatric Ventilator have been deployed and staff training is complete
  • GVPMH – 1 GETINGE Maquet Servo S Ventilator Adult / Paediatric has been received at hospital. 1 BREAS Vivo 3 Non Invasive ventilator, 6 fully motorized ICU beds from MIDMARK, 1 ALLENGERS portable X-RAY machine, 1 ABBOTT-I STAT portable ABG machine are on their way. Order is in process for 6 NIHON KOHDEN ICU monitors.

OUTREACH AND FUNDRAISING UPDATES

Our outreach team is working very hard to raise funds for this cause. Thus far we have received funds from a variety of different donor groups. Our target is to raise around 50 lakhs to support both these rural hospitals and distribute the funds based on requirements of each hospital. Our fund raising goals for SLH is around 10 lakhs and for GVPMH is around 40 lakhs.

FUTURE STEPS

As we help SLH & GVPMH deploy more equipment, we will focus on gathering data and related information on health outcomes. This information will be processed and made accessible via our website (www.socialseva.org/mri). Our aim is to stay engaged with these 2 hospitals over multiple years and build up the necessary knowledge required to scale this initiative to other rural hospitals facing similar constraints. We also hope to use our learnings from this pilot project to more formally engage with corporate donors and CSR funding sources.

Monthly project updates will be made available on our website (www.socialseva.org/mri). Please reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to contribute to this effort.

Your donation directly impacts critical healthcare services at these rural hospitals. and will go a long way in enabling better medical outcomes and saving precious lives. Please spread the word and encourage friends to donate to this cause.

We can accept donations only from local Indian accounts and NRE/NRO accounts. Donations are 80G tax detuctible. For 80G tax receipt, email Donor Name, Donor Address and Donor PAN card copy to contact@socialseva.org



Previous Updates

  • General Updates:
    • Strategic partnership with 2 rural hospitals with signed and stamped MOUs in place:
      - St. Luke’s Hospital (SLH) , 10 bed ICU in Srirampur, Maharashtra.
      - G. Vasudeva Pai Memorial Hospital (GVPMH), 6 bed ICU in Moodbidri, Karnataka
      Our team (Jayant,Prakash,Sanjeev,Chat) has engaged in multiple meetings with hospital management. MOUs and related documents are uploaded to Google drive

    • The MRI organizational structure has been more formally structured into focus committees for effective project management by drawning from the Loyola Alumni network:
      - Oversight & Finance (Jayant,Prakash,Sanjeev, Chat)
      - Medical (Shivram, Anurag,Sanjay,Krishna)
      - Logistics & Delivery (Rajnish,Raghu)
      - Ethics & Regulations (Chat, Anurag)
      - Outreach and Fund Raising (Ramesh,Venu,Jayant,Prakash,Ajay)

    • Equipment evaluation starts with understanding the needs and requirements of the ICUs at SLH & GVPMH. We use a rigorous and comprehensive approach to identify the medical equipment required to offer the best intensive care to patients. This due diligence by our team (Prakash,Jayant) with regular consultaions from our medical committee(Shivram,Anurag,Sanjay,Krishna) has resulted in identifying a set of 'best-fit' medical equipment vendors.
      All shortlisted vendor information is uploaded to Google drive

    • Procurement of best fit solutions involves engaging and negotiating with medical equipment vendors to provide the equipment and associated training services to both the hospitals. As of this date our negotiating team (Prakash,Rajnish,Raghu with medical consul from Krishna) have manged to get highly discounted quotations and have already placed orders worth over 12 lakhs. Over the next few weeks we hope to place additional orders worth around 30 lakhs. Our procurement budget for both hospitals will be around 50 lakhs. Our goal is to provide our partners with high quality products in a timely manner and, to date, have already processed the following orders:
      - SLH – 2 BREAS Vivo 3 Non Invasive Adult/Paediatric Ventilator - over 4 lakhs
      - GVPMH – 1 Maquet Servo S Ventilator Adult/Paediatric - over 8 lakhs

  • Outreach and Fundraising Updates:
    Our team (Ramesh, Ajay, Venu ) is working very hard to raise funds for this cause. Thus far we have received funds from a variety of different donor groups including the 76ers. We are looking to raise around 50 lakhs in this round.

  • Future Steps:
    As we help SLH & GVPMH deploy more equipment, we will focus on gathering data and related information on health outcomes. This information will be processed and made accessible via this website. Our aim is to stay engaged with these 2 hospitals over multiple years and build up the necessary knowledge required to scale this initiative to other rural hospitals facing similar constraints. We also hope to use our learnings from this pilot project to more formally engage with corporate donors and CSR funding sources.

  • Monthly updates will be made available on this page. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to contribute to this effort.

  • MRI-Moodbidri is at the MOU stage: We have had very good meetings with the GVPMH team there and have identified all the necessary equipment that needs to be sponsored. The hospital is going in for a major revamp and we will be contributing to the 6 bed ICU setup. We are targeting signing the MOU by June 30 and putting in the order for 1 ventilator (among other things) by July 5. GVPMH is planning on going live on September 5.
  • MRI-Shrirampur is moving slowly but steadily. Had a good meeting with the CMO and since she is on leave till July 6, we have pushed all discussions to after that and a potential visit to the site around July 15. Meanwhile repair and maintenance work is going on at the hospital and should be in good shape by July 15.
  • Fund raising effort: We have put together an emailer which has been sent out to the 76ers google group last Friday (June 18) and again today (June 25). We have also started one-on-one fund raising calls.
  • Vendor interactions: We have received almost all our preferred vendor quotations and will now negotiate the right pricing. The next 2 weeks will be key to choosing the best-fit products.

  • In order to pilot this initiative, the committee is working with St. Luke’s Hospital in Shrirampur, Maharashtra : http://www.stlukeshospital.in/
  • Conversations with the medical team have indicated that they have two types of needs - Oxygen Supply and ICU Equipment (Bipaps, Ventilators)
  • We spent a lot of time talking about the utility of deploying a full-service oxygen plant at the site which could service the entire 100 bed hospital and 10 bed ICU. This could also be a sustainable revenue generator for the hospital. The general consensus was this was the best solution for the long term.
  • The hospital currently has 2 ventilators and 1 Phillips A-40 Bipap machine working in the ICU. The hospital folks mentioned that they require more Bipaps to cover the other 7 beds. Our discussions centered around balancing the ICU needs for current COVID pandemic versus regular non COVID use.
  • We are setting up a doctor-to-doctor discussion with our medical and logistics committees to assess their current systems and needs. We are also engaging with vendors who put up oxygen plants to determine the best fit solution for a 100 bed hospital and 10 bed ICU.
  • Once we determine the the final equipment list for the ICU the medical and logistics teams will try to identify some good bio medical engineer from their network who can visit the St.luke site in Srirampur and give us a good technical analysis of the ICU situation.
  • The logistics committee will suggest some potential vendors for Bipaps and Ventilators that fall within the 10 lakh range for the pilot. Servicing capabilities of vendor for Srirampur area will be crucial while choosing a final vendor.
  • The Outreach team will use the finalized details of the pilot to work on creating a simple campaign to fund-raise the required money for the 10 lakh pilot equipment. Funs raised beyoind this amount could potentially also contribute towards the deployment of an oxygen plant at St. Luke's.

  • Discussed different stakeholders to prioritize (hospitals vs clinics)
  • Discussed different models of engagement (in-kind contributions, technology assistance, etc.)
  • Set-up broad organisational structure (see image below) to ensure efficient and informed decision-making. We're looking for more allies to join us so please email us if you'd like to join a committee!
  • Determined fund-raising budget for pilot project. Funds will be raised from a small group within the 76ers community.
  • Discussed a few options for the pilot project, to be finalised in the next 2 weeks.

  • Broad Objective: Identify currently underserved point-of-care (POC) providers and determine how the 76ers alumni group can leverage their professional networks to provide these communities access to supplies and equipment.

  • Identify / engage with hospital / POC stakeholders
  • Determine their specific healthcare challenges and associated constraints
  • Develop a database of vendors and suppliers for the necessary equipment
  • Plan a small pilot that focuses on facilitating the delivery of required medical supplies to these areas
  • Validate the plan with experts to ensure it adheres to various ethical and legal guidelines
  • Fundraise a small amount of money from within the 76ers alumni network to test the model and run the pilot
  • Monitor the success of the pilot and use it to determine next steps