With the pandemic wreaking havoc, our nation is facing a serious crisis where we all need to stand shoulder to shoulder and extend assistance to our people in need.
As construction workers are moving out of the cities and going back to their own villages due to the current panic situation, construction activities in the nation will soon be on a stand still.
Construction workers going back to their villages has resulted in a wide spread of Covid cases in rural areas as well. Being well aware that rural areas lack medical facilities and that they need help to recover from Covid, CIDC has decided to come up with a plan and create a task force called CIDC COVID Command Centers (CCCC) that will extend a helping hand to those who are in dire need.
CIDC COVID Command Centers (CCCC) here has tried to focus on issues such as:
- Cost of technology
- Safety of the system and statutory approvals
- Speed of development
- Cost of critical components
- Cost of operations
- Life of system
- Repair costs and salvage value of system
CCCC will be operational at district level. It will be a virtual / physical command center that will presently look at reaching out to the needy in times of COVID crisis. The model will be scaled up subsequently to make it a permanent Center which will extend help in times of any crisis / disaster.
Since COVID hampers deliveries as it is believed to spread through touch / air, we need to develop protocols to ensure – Touch / No Touch. CIDC had a discussion with experts who came up with their valuable suggestions in order to overcome this difficult time.
- Start looking at things that are required on an urgent basis, needs of COVID Patients / Family.
The immediate requirements of COVID Patients / Families:
Medicines, Hospital Beds, Oxygen, Cremations / Burials, Running Errands, Counselling, Verifications of all Information Flow and Food - Temporary relief of Oxygen level by providing ASPIDOSPERMA QUEBRACHO Q.
- Creating a wing of doctors who are available on call.
- Homeopathic medicines which can help ease the suffering.
- A list of common medicines that people can keep handy in case they feel uneasy.
- Providing support to the hospital for making available of beds to the COVID patient.
- Provide logistical support. All data to be collected at a district level and consolidated only post verification. The construction companies in the local areas could be involved in the logistics of supply.
- Create a group with all the construction industry captains from all over the nation who can help with the logistical arrangements and look after the management of supply lines.
- Create a mobile application where people can view all the information regarding demand and supply facilities. The data needs to be real-time and updated regularly.
- Communication plays a big role in mitigation of any crisis / disaster and we need to ensure that we have communication protocols in place and methods to verify any third party claims / facts before we use it.
- We need to mobilize the strength of the construction industry and help out with the resources available.
- We need to act as catalysts and leverage on any existing technology / process that are already available by collaborations.
- A video can be made of the process of extraction of oxygen with the endorsement of IIT, Mumbai. Also, the method as to which the extracted oxygen’s quality can be checked as per the medical norms. Trigen laboratories, where nitrogen is separated, will now help produce oxygen that is separated from the atmosphere.
- This video can be shared with our petroleum friends through them. It will be shared with all petrol pumps. The video should also be shared with the hospitals as well to gain their confidence.
- People can come together and contribute in their own capacity, in order to set up an oxygen plant.
- Black marketing of oxygen, medicines and required aids to be stopped or genuine alternatives for sourcing such items could be created.
- We can also look at utilizing natural air which is available everywhere and already oxygen concentrators are available technology, let us work together to simplify this and encourage equipment manufacturers to go for mass production.
- Encourage the media to report balanced news, restrict showing the undesirable scenes.
- Augment the physical Infrastructure of large medical facilities each to add 200 beds in 5 – 7 days by engaging prefab manufacturers, rest of the facilities may be added jointly by hospital admin and our group.
- Come up with techniques which can speed up the cremation process.
- A pool of various service providers, especially NGOs working in the cities which we initially want to target, can be created by CIDC. We can get the due diligence done from our experts present in these cities through ECI, ICC, Vendors, colleges & VKA awardees. Service providers are providing free medicines, food, oxygen, etc.
- Identify major resources lying unutilized on sites / plants due to partial shutdown of work. First resource should be O2 cylinders and other similar utilities. This will help us identify the stock of resources with the construction industry.
- Organize regular interaction with industry / sites where experts can educate them on basic protocols of disaster management. This session can be concluded by collecting their inputs on our common agenda of fighting the pandemic. We will have more than 10,000 supporters soon with this practice and it will be much easier to approach any administrative authority with this kind of strength.
- Isolation wards to be created in CIDC centers. Number of beds can be made available at the centers provided the local administration / industry can fund the same for other necessary arrangements.
- We can use volunteers from the engineering colleges who can help as local volunteers.
Challenging times need to be addressed with a united front and the CIDC COVID Command Centers has joined hands with the construction industry to utilize a multitude of resources including mechanical support for the welfare of those affected.
The need of hope and help is of utmost priority in this critical situation and we strive to extend our support across the nation, unbound by time.