Rotary Rochdale respond to call for help from Indian heritage doctors

The Rotary Club of Rochdale has raised £1,000 towards emergency funds for life-saving medical equipment for India, which is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus.

The second wave of coronavirus has resulted in 200,000 deaths in India, with oxygen and other medications in perilously short supply.

As a result, the rotary club decided to help by raising funds with the response co-ordinated by former Rotary President Dr Ravi Sharma, originally from Delhi, who has worked in Rochdale as a physician for many years.

Furthermore, an Oldham GP who works in Rochdale has helped raise a mammoth £32,000 in just two days towards the cause.

Dr Anita Sharma is urging people to help aid the country whose medics have saved thousands of lives in poorer areas here.

 

 

Dr Sharma has joined other physicians of Indian heritage from the British International Doctors Association, in raising the emergency funds. She also believes we should all donate what we can in honour of those GPs and surgeons who have made up for the shortfall of British-born doctors by coming from India and caring for those in neighbourhoods where nobody else would.

India-born and raised Dr Sharma said: “Britain made desperate pleas for help during the 1940s and 1950s for qualified medics to come here and Indian doctors rallied to that call and indeed opened-up new practices in the most impoverished areas of the UK.

“Those doctors have been amongst the most professional and innovative that the NHS has ever seen, staging nurses in GP practices, for example. We have all seen the heartbreak that Covid-19 has wreaked in India. Perhaps now is the time for UK based people to respond to that cry for help?”

A published author and member of many healthcare decision-making bodies, Anita’s South Chadderton surgery has recently become the first in the UK to employ a pharmacist to support patients experiencing mental health turmoil during lockdown. A specialist in women’s health, she has created the Endometriosis Awareness North campaign to aid women who suffer with this often-crippling condition and is the only GP in the borough to offer a pessary clinic to support women with prolapses.

Dr Sharma has her own views on why Covid-19 has spread so virulently in her native country, saying: “I do question how lax the Indian government has been in imposing lockdowns and with no furlough scheme available, can see why low-paid workers are risking their health to earn money. Large gatherings at religious festivals haven’t helped much, either.

“I think these are salient lessons for the rest of the world to learn and those who have opposed social distancing and lockdowns can now see how easily the virus transmits.”

Additionally, BAPIO (British Association Physician of Physician of Indian Origin) is also garnering funds to source 200 oxygen concentrators for India.

“I think you can ask questions of the Indian government and wonder about the wisdom of allowing a lucrative competition like the Indian Premier League to continue literally yards away from where thousands of people are dying” concluded Anita.

“But now is not the time for blame or indeed suggest that this is just someone else’s problem. GPs from India came to Britain because they had a special affinity with the country but also because they cared. Now it is our turn to step-up.”