“Ambulances are queuing up for hours, with seriously ill Covid-19 patients waiting for beds to be admitted. While waiting they are supported with oxygen in the ambulance. Sometimes there is not enough oxygen available.” Paul Sunder Singh from Karunalaya in India writes about the current situation with Covid-19 in the country.
We received the following update via WhatsApp from Paul Sunder Singh yesterday (10th May, 2021) about Karunalaya’s current emergency response to coronavirus in Chennai. We will continue to share updates as we receive them.
Following a very generous donation from a grant-making trust last week, we have been able to send £16,000 of emergency relief to Karunalaya. If you are keen to further support their emergency response, please click here or follow the link at the bottom of the page.
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“We are continuing our frontline support at the Government General Hospital with food and water. 500 packets were distributed today. At this place we get to see the pathetic situations people are going through every day.
Ambulances are queuing up for hours, with seriously ill Covid-19 patients waiting for beds to be admitted. While waiting they are supported with oxygen in the ambulance. Sometimes there is not enough oxygen available. A waiting patient died in the ambulance after waiting for a few hours. One person who came with a patient said, “we were taken in the ambulance in the morning, first they took us to a screening centre then we were sent to this place.
Paul Sunder Singh from Karunalaya, Amos Trust’s partner in India
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Since morning we have been in the ambulance without food, desperately waiting to be called in. While waiting we saw many who succumbed to Covid-19 being stretchered out, some are well-packed in a black colour bag, some are wrapped in a blanket. Those who can pay for the bag are packed in it, others who cannot afford it are wrapped in a blanket.”
One person who came with a patient said, “we were taken in the ambulance in the morning, first they took us to a screening centre then we were sent to this place.”
In Hindu tradition, when a family member dies, rituals are performed before the funeral. For Covid-19 deaths, the body is not handed over to the family, but sent straight to the crematorium. Today a wife who lost her husband was undergoing a ritual at the hospital premises in a corner, so that the departed soul will rest in peace.
In the wards where Covid-19 patients are treated, one family member is permitted to help the patient and attend to their needs. These attending members suffer without food and water. They started looking for our food packets and are grateful to receive it. One said “I keep this pack of food for the night as we do not get anything for dinner.” One said “can I give this to the patient too as he has not eaten since afternoon.”
While distributing food packets, the ambulance drivers came to us and asked for food and water. They said that they have no time to eat and at night when we reach the hospital it is very late and they cannot find food and water. One driver insisted that we gave food and water to them too.
One said “I keep this pack of food for the night as we do not get anything for dinner.” One said “can I give this to the patient too as he has not eaten since afternoon.”
[Our team is] very sad, we meet every time we complete distribution and talk about our experiences and share our concerns. Then we decide what to do for the next day. My wife Bakiyam is in the lead, cooking the food and making sure everything is done well in time. Our team packed, took the food to the hospital and distributed. Our big boys also gave a helping hand happily.”
Paul Sunder Singh
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To support Karunalaya’s emergency efforts, please visit amostrust.org/karunalaya where you can make a donation.
Thank you.
Thanks to your generosity, we’re delivering food aid in Gaza. Since Israel imposed a food embargo on Gaza after the 7th October attack, we have been doing all we can to make sure that people sheltering from the Israeli attacks have been able to have food and water. This is now even more important as the Rafah crossing has been closed to aid supplies for 6 weeks and starvation and food insecurity levels across Gaza continue to rise. Find out more.
940 People. 1 Toilet. That was the situation in the camps in Rafah (at the southern tip of Gaza) among the 1.1 million people sheltering there before Israel invaded on 6th May. Since then, 1 million people have been forced out of this so-called safe area, with 900,000 of them moving to central Gaza onto an even thinner strip of land along the coast, with virtually no facilities. Read more
Food aid, medical care, toilet blocks, community buildings and more fundraising. Read our summer 2024 update. “When I last wrote in December, only the greatest pessimists were anticipating that the attack on Gaza would still be ongoing and that conditions would have got so much worse.” Chris Rose writes.
For the last 16 years at Amos Trust, May has meant getting on our bikes and hitting the road. This year, it will be ‘saddle sores and smiles’ as Chris Rose and Meg Williams from the Amos team will be riding Coast-to-Coast to raise funds for Gaza. Read the full story.
“The failure of our leaders to back words with meaningful action is glaring. As the 1.4 million people in Rafah face attacks that our leaders know would be catastrophic, they must finally act to stop the slaughter.” Read the statement from thirty one UK NGO’s regarding Israel’s invasion of Rafa.
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