A group of 21 youngsters led by a social activist Abhishek Singh is arranging oxygen cylinders, plasma, beds and medicines for Covid patients who lack any assistance or help in arranging for the above.

The group, Team Dhanbad, has so far arranged plasma for 27 critically affected patients of Dhanbad and other neighbouring places including Bokaro, Dumka, Ranchi and also in far off places like Mau in Uttar Pradesh and Ghaziabad.

Singh, who underwent a Covid vaccine trial in December 2020 along with four member of his team said,“We started work with the onset of the second wave of the pandemic more than 50 days ago during the first week of March, helping patients find beds, arranging oxygen cylinders and food for the needy families through personal contacts etc.”

“We used social media platforms including, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram to get in touch with the needy patients as well as the hospitals, etc arranging food for them,”said Singh and added that they are getting over 100 requests for help from the families of Covid patients on a daily basis.

Explaining the modus operandi of their work, Singh said, “The team is divided in separate sub groups, one of which keeps tabs on the social media platform looking for requests for help, finding the availability of beds and oxygen in the area, surfing websites, government helpline numbers etc.”

“The other one is deputed on ground supplies, medicines and oxygen cylinders to patients in their home, personally contacting and convincing the Covid recovered persons to donate plasma for others fighting with Covid,” said Singh.

“The going was much more tough when we started our work as we had lesser information about the availability of resources but as things started rolling, we have earned the trust of everyone including the government officials and administration, people’s representatives and even other social organisations within Dhanbad and other places like Bokaro, Ranchi etc,” said Singh.

“Though, the situation has quite improved since over a week as half of around 1500 beds of Dhanbad are lying vacant with lesser number of fresh cases and higher recoveries but during the peak period around a fortnight back, we had to spend several hours outside hospitals arranging for beds due to a huge rush of patients,” explained Singh.

The social group’s work has earned them praises from leaders like technocrat turned politician and former MLA. Kunal Sarangi and former chief minister Raghubar Das besides journalists like Rubkika Liyakat.