This Mumbai Man Sold His SUV To Provide Free Oxygen Cylinders For Emergency COVID-19 Patients
As the country battles an unprecedented health crisis, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, there is an ever-growing demand for ventilators and oxygen supplies, as more and more patients get admitted to hospitals or are in home isolation.?
Most of the hospitals are struggling to arrange adequate number of oxygen cylinders for which the prices have shot up due to the high demand.And a large section of the population, who are on home isolation and ventilators support to survive cannot do it because their families are not able to afford them.?
But in Mumbai, the worst-hit city in India due to COVID-19 there is a small helping hand. Shahnawaz Shaikh, a resident of Malad has been helping COVID-19 patients by arranging Oxygen cylinders for them, spending his own money.?
Shahnawaz and his friend Abbas Rizvi who run an NGO called Unity and Dignity Foundation have been providing Oxygen cylinders free of cost for COVID-19 patients.?
According to Shaikh, it all began when a relative of Rizvi, who was six months pregnant died outside a hospital due to the lack of oxygen after she was turned away by six hospitals.?
After realising how oxygen supply is crucial for the survival of COVID-19 patients, and the shortage of it in the market, the duo decided to do whatever they can to help them.?
They had been active in social work for some time and had spent a lot of money on feeding the hungry during the lockdown.?This meant that they had to look for other sources to raise the funds to buy the oxygen cylinders.?
"No one deserves to die like this. Hence, I decided to sell my SUV car for which I got Rs 4 lakh, which is pretty less. But we managed to buy 60 oxygen cylinders and rented another 40. So far, we have helped 300 people by providing them cylinders on time," Shaikh said.?
Before selling his SUV, he had used it as a free ambulance to ferry patients to hospitals.?
After they posted about the free oxygen cylinders, they said they have been getting 25 to 30 requests every day and based on two conditions - a doctor¡¯s recommendation, and, that they come to pick it up themselves, Shaikh and Rizvi have been helping everyone who has reached out to them.?
He however, said that in exceptional circumstances where an entire family is in quarantine, they deliver the cylinders themselves.
