The spirit of PPP strengthened our resolve to serve humanity: Father George, Holy Family Hospital – ET HealthWorld

COVID-19 Learnings
Holy Family Hospital has been a COVID Care Centre since the first wave. This year, when the second wave struck us, it was something we never imagined. We never thought of this kind of a disaster falling on us. Before we could realize what is happening to people because of COVID, the patients started coming in, and the numbers were unimaginable. The numbers started increasing within a few hours and a few days.

Holy Family is a 350 bedded hospital, but I had to increase these beds to 450. I also had to attach this healthcare facility to Surya hotel. There were 150 patients who had to be managed with additional oxygen cylinders. In the beginning, we managed with whatever resources we had. We tried to arrange for extra cylinders, extra beds, extra monitors, and extra regulators. Day and night, we were running around to arrange for the resources. The Emergency (ward of the hospital) had the capacity of 30 beds, but there were 80 patients. Many of them were sitting on the chair and receiving oxygen. It was something very painful for us. Every hour, we were running around to ensure that there was constant oxygen supply. That (oxygen) crisis was something, which was worrying us. We had sleepless nights ensuring that oxygen was supplied to our hospital.

Those days, we really went through terrible times, and we tried to manage with our limited resources. The team of COVID warriors – the doctors, the nurses, the support staff – all of them stood together. They never counted the number of hours they were working. They were working tirelessly, without even food sometimes, without even rest. They were continuing to save the lives of the people. That is how we managed, and all of them stood like a team. They really worked hard to save so many lives. We could see a lot of people desperately coming and pleading to us to get beds; desperately going around and pleading for oxygen support, and we tried to give whatever possible we could manage.

COVID-19 Challenges
During those two months, we faced many challenges. The first most important challenge was to arrange beds for the patients. That was the biggest challenge and we had to run around; and overnight, contact our vendors. They were also facing a lot of challenges. But I could say that whenever we contacted our vendors or suppliers, they were ready to help us. I must thank them. There were also restrictions on vehicle movement due to lockdown. I must appreciate the support we got from the government agencies, for example, the Delhi Police were ready to help me out with vehicle movement to get additional beds any time. They were available; they were ready to arrange movement for hospital equipment, like monitors, ventilators. They gave us good support.

The next biggest challenge was to arrange for oxygen. Though we have support for liquid medical oxygen from Linde company, but we had to arrange for 150 (additional) cylinders, thanks to some of the missionaries, SDMs/nodal officers assigned by the Delhi and the Central governments to ensure that there was no oxygen shortage. Those people coordinated very well and most of them made sure that whenever there was a SOS call, we got medical oxygen. We faced, at times, desperate situations – the oxygen level (of admitted patients) was going down, and there was resource (oxygen) for not more than one or two hours. In those situations, whenever we sent an SOS call, the government made sure that oxygen cylinders were supplied to us. So, we could save a lot of lives. A lot of people came forward to support us, and gave us oxygen cylinders and concentrators. They came forward to extend their helping hand during the desperate and disastrous situation.

COVID-19 – Need for Public Private Partnerships (PPP)
Those were the days when we realized that the concept of PPP could work very well. On one hand, we have hospitals struggling to ensure vital resources, and getting support from various people. On the other hand, the government was also trying to join hands with us and give us whatever resources we required. At the same time, we could also see a lot of NGOs coming forward to provide resources through CSR funds.

I have been talking a lot about serving the society, corporate social responsibility, giving back to the society from the point of view of NGOs. Those could be executed and realized during the pandemic times. We also got a lot of generous support from people; they were asking us what we needed at during that time. A lot of contributions, a lot of help was received from various people.

Public Private Partnership is the concept we should focus on. We should utilize and realize it more so that, God forbid, whenever there is a pandemic like situation, we could join hands. We will be able to serve people efficiently and save a lot of lives through that.

I am also grateful to a lot of organizations like the LEHS|WISH, Nokia and other organizations that came forward and approached us voluntarily and said – we are ready to help the hospital; we are ready to provide whatever we required. They gave us resources to manage this COVID crisis. They were ready to help us for (establishing) oxygen plants; they were ready to give us help for oxygen cylinders; and they were ready to give us human resource help to manage this COVID crisis.

We hope that this model of public private partnership, and the NGOs and funding agencies coming forward to join hands to serve the humanity, serve the society continues because people still need help. People are still under fear; people are struggling to meet their ends; and people are struggling to come back to their normal life. That is where we need to come together as one family – the government, the private sector and the corporates, and put together our resources and give back to the society. This is, what we feel, the need of the hour!