The harrowing scenes from India are shaking the world as the country struggles with soaring cases of Covid. India is seeing hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 cases daily and their healthcare system has collapsed. People are dying at the doorsteps of crowded hospitals. People are forced to take patients home for care. Oxygen cylinders/concentrators and medications are becoming more expensive and difficult to get. Lower and middle income people are unable to access consultations with physicians, medical care and hospital beds when they become seriously ill.

The Child Foundation and a group of Canadian doctors, lawyers and paramedics are collaborating to rapidly deploy aid and support to people in India at risk of and diagnosed with COVID-19 before they need to go to hospital.

A network of nurses in India will be supported by volunteer virtual physicians in India and Canada. We are also aiming to outfit a rural hospital with temporary respirators, oxygen supplies to enable access to critical care that would otherwise be entirely unavailable.