An Urgent Appeal to Help HOPE Combat COVID-19

LATEST UPDATE

With the reduction in cases in Kolkata we have been able to convert HOPE Hospital back to an exclusively non-COVID hospital. We will continue to treat COVID patients in our Satellite Health Facility, which will be expanding with the addition of 2 more floors. These floors will be used for in-house patients and our vaccination program, which will be commencing very soon.

If the situation changes and the number of cases in Kolkata begin to increase again, we will be ready to covert wards in our main hospital to COVID wards once again. We are already making preparations for a third wave.

India recently surpassed Brazil to become the world’s second worst-hit country in the COVID-19 pandemic. A second wave of infection is currently sweeping through the country and is considerably more infectious, and deadly, than the first. It is getting worse day by day.

According to our colleagues at HOPE Hospital, during the first wave children mostly remained asymptomatic, but this time they are exhibiting symptoms like diarrhoea and vomiting.

The government hospitals in Kolkata cannot cope with the new surge of cases and HOPE Hospital has now reopened it’s 10 bed COVID ward and converted 2 other wards to COVID wards. Right now we have 53 beds for COVID patients – all those beds are full.

We need your support more than ever, so that we can continue our mission to serve the most underprivileged people in our society.

Thank you so much, your support is saving lives.

IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM THE GROUND IN KOLKATA

We have been completely overwhelmed by the staggering generosity of the Irish people in the past few weeks. As a result of such a huge outpouring we now have enough funds for equipment and PPE but we are still raising funds for the ongoing running costs for the hospital, as we expect to be treating COVID patients for some time to come.

The incredible outpouring of kindness arising from our appeal means we can now extend our emergency response to feeding those affected by the COVID crisis in the street and slum communities. Kolkata is now in partial lock-down. Daily laborers, migrant workers, and their families are running out of food. We need to reach these families and hand out food packs. In addition to food packs, the people in these communities will also receive medical support from HOPE hospital and our night-watch ambulances. This extra work will start this week.

In 2020 nobody at HOPE thought that we would end up fundraising for oxygen cylinders, medical equipment, turning our hospital into a COVID hospital, having to feed thousands of hungry families of daily labourers (again in 2021), but amazingly with your help, together, WE HAVE. The incredible HOPE staff on the ground in India diverted their work to help wherever the needs became greatest.

To all our donors, new and longstanding, please be assured, that even in the face of such emergency right now, we are not forgetting our vital pre-COVID work with the children and their communities in the streets and slums, the children in our protection homes, our child sponsorship and much more. These communities have been decimated by COVID and they still need us, now more than ever.

When this is over, sad to say, there will be very few families in Kolkata who will not have suffered a loss. We will continue to fundraise and fight for everyone affected by this horrendous pandemic and ongoing crisis. Every donation from all of you will be used to help in this situation in whatever ways we can.