By pushing actors with the power to (re)allocate their surplus vaccine doses, and to work towards making sure vulnerable communities in Nepal receive this intervention. For more information see www.vaccinesfornepal.org, which includes our recent letter to the US Ambassador to Nepal. Our Nepal-based petition received tremendous support, with over 20,000 signatures in two days, and 25k when we closed it out. You can find the petition to US Representatives and decision-makers here. We are simultaneously expanding our advocacy to other countries.
We created a "Blueprint", integrating the Nepal government's outline in collaboration with medical doctors who have been treating COVID patients in Nepal and abroad. We are sharing this with individuals and groups who are setting up surge management/isolation centers across Nepal. You can find our initial draft of the blueprint here. We also created a template to self-monitor during home isolation. This is information on home isolation in Nepali. We’ve been working with local government representatives to understand what they require to set up and run these centers, and creating a platform for the private sector to step up and help.
COVID Alliance member HAPSA-Nepal has also created a database of medical officers and nurses to assist with staffing of these isolation centers in collaboration with the local government. Nurses can sign up here. Medical officers can sign up here.
Our team has also been working to identify potential isolation centers and set it up with required resources with food, telemedicine support, staff training, and oxygen supplies for those that need it. We have been advocating with local wards and mayors within our sphere of reach to open isolation centers for their wards. Currently, Alliance member, the Nawa Asha Griha Clinic, is supporting isolation centers by providing medicines, food, ambulance service and oxygen cylinders run by the local ward officers. Isolation centers set up in collaboration with the local governments are in Tokha Ward 2, Budhanilkantha - Golfutar Ward No. 2, and we are scouting for two more centers.
You can donate to the Nawa Asha Griha Clinic here. A list of isolation centers if you are looking for those with oxygen, is here. Please call before going. Please also note that this list is a work in progress.
List: Isolation Center - (this is a live form that is updated regularly
Form: https://alliance4nep.page.link/isolation-centers-form
How you can support this:
responding to patient and caregiver calls looking for medical support staffed by trained nurses and medical officers has been up and running for several days already, this also includes a telemedicine referral. We have been receiving well over 100 calls/day. Given the volume, we have trained and recruited additional medical members and added hours of operation to cover the call distribution times. Please refer to this dashboard for stats.
We receive calls from all over the country and even from abroad seeking information about home care, medication, symptoms, risks, and other COVID related queries. We were able to onboard a Pediatric Consultant for teleconsultation to address any queries related to child health. We frequently receive calls for ICU beds, which we forward to www.covidconnectnp.org, and for oxygen supply, to Alliance’ initiative OxygenforNepal, among others. Furthermore, we keep track of calls that we believe need economic assistance and follow up with the caller. If there is a need for economic assistance we connect them to the Alliance members who are working on food relief or guide them to the nearest distribution center that we are aware of. ASK Foundation and Danphe Care are leading this effort. To support this initiative please go here.
Alliance members have scripted and disseminated Public Service Announcements (PSAs) through community radio stations in local languages. Alliance member Rising Production House Pvt. Ltd has put together relevant information for dissemination, which has been playing for a few days already. Currently 23 local FM across the nation broadcast 5 different PSA in Nepali and Maithili language. The information will be on air for a month. All of this information is for consumption and for local organizations. They are publicly available in this folder.
We have designed 5 PSA in different local languages (Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Doteli, Tamang). These are for social media.
Oxygen support, cylinder tracking and circulation/transport support As of May 8th, 6 hospitals in Kathmandu have issued press releases regarding problems with xygen procurement. While we work to understand and get to the core of the problem - is it a problem at the oxygen plant level, or refilling infrastructure or distribution system - we continue to support isolation centers with oxygen. OxygenForNepal initiative led by Creasion, an Alliance member has procured over 35 oxygen cylinders locally and is in the process of importing cylinders from China and an oxygen plant from France through a consortium. Alliance members, Nawa Asha Griha and White Grain Foundation have been directly supporting isolation centers through procurement of Oxygen concentrators, doing the refill. Nawa Asha Griha has been able to do multiple oxygen refills for the isolation center at Tokha and Budhanilkantha. Furthermore, White Grain Foundation procured and distributed 10 oxygen concentrators and 1 high flow oxygen for Swayambhu, Nepalgunj and Surkhet isolation center and Nawa Asha Griha has procured 5 oxygen concentrators for distributions to isolation centers in Kathmandu and in Nepalgunj and Surkhet. You can find out more about their work here - OxygenForNepal, Nawa Asha Griha, White Grain Foundation.
Kosi Collaborative has developed an easy to implement, learn and deploy system to track concentrators and oxygen cylinders. It is a QR code and KoboCollect based tracking system. It is providing the source code, initial training and implementation plan to any organization who is looking to track their concentrators, oxygen cylinders etc, for accountability purposes, the return and flow cycle of equipment, and geographic reach of the support. NRNA Australia is implementing this system for their concentrators.
On May 13th, we partnered with HAPSA-Nepal and Brown University & Project Hope to conduct a training of trainers course on clinical management of COVID-19 with updated evidence-based clinical guidelines. The training includes videos, simulations, and case scenarios. Furthermore, our Alliance partners have been training hotline medical staff and isolation center staff on COVID-19 treatment algorithms, which were prepared and delivered focusing on Nepal. This team led by Dr Ramu Kharel has already conducted several 4-hour trainings, each of which was attended by almost 300 doctors and nurses from across the country.
We're establishing a means by which daily wage laborers, members of marginalized communities, and people who may be having other medical emergencies, can access support. We are still doing outreach for this. We have a proposal for the banking and financial sector to set up a crisis welfare fund as a part of their CSR to support frontline workers at isolation centers in the event that they get sick and need monetary and medical support for Covid-related medical expenses. At present, our suggestion is to have this fund active for up to 4 months, with up to 1 lakh available on a reimbursement basis. The concept note for the welfare fund is here.
Alliance members (Nawa Asha Griha and Jimi) have thus far provided 10 days ration for a family of 5, costing around USD 15 (Npr 1,600) to 100 families this year. They are working towards supporting 1,000 families with rations for up to 6 weeks. Given, government hasn't started food relief, there will be a lot of hunger due to lock downs among the daily wage working families. You can find out more about the initiative here.
Given the current situation is causing a lot of stress, anxiety, and other issues related to the mind, we are organizing various online sessions to help people manage their emotional and mental wellbeing. We are working with mental health organizations to create support group networks and access to relevant and qualified resources.
Biomedical team addresses the maintenance and solutions of biomedical instrumentation. Currently, the main focus is on the oxygen concentrators and oxygen plants. We are supporting the installation, repair, maintenance and operation of the concentrators and plants across the country.
We are collaborating with MOT (Mission Oxygen Team) who are also our leading partner. Robotics Association of Nepal [RAN], Biotechnology Society of Nepal [BSN] and Biomedical Engineering Foundation Nepal [BEFN] are working together as a MOT with a group of 100+ Engineers all over Nepal. Nepal Biomedical Association [NBA] as a supporting organisation. We are also recruiting engineers with biomedical backgrounds or have previously worked on biomedical devices to install, operate, maintain and repair oxygen facilities all over Nepal.
Our areas of expertise:
Our Plans:
Our supporting organisations: