Ola to Deliver Free Oxygen Concentrators Via its App
The coronavirus cases in India are at a peak and our healthcare system is buckling under the increasing caseload. There has been a scarcity of resources in many parts of the country such as oxygen concentrators, hospital beds as well as medicines. In this scenario, Ola Foundation is helping users with oxygen concentrators. Ola will ask your users to fill in basic information to gain access to oxygen concentrators and after validating the details, Ola will deliver the oxygen concentrators at the doorstep of the users free of cost.
In this challenging time, Ola has partnered with GiveIndia, which is a donation platform, to provide free oxygen concentrators to consumers via Ola Mobile App for free. The ride-hailing company and the online donation platform are together contributing towards relief efforts and planning for the home delivery of 10,000 oxygen concentrators for the needy, at free of cost. The company is giving a helping hand to those in need of medical aid amid the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Initially, the company is starting with 500 oxygen concentrators in the first week. This service is currently available only in Bengaluru and soon Ola and GiveIndia will ramp it up across India with 10,000 concentrators, according to the statement released by the company.
How will this work?
To access this service, you first need to download the Ola app from Playstore or App Store. After that customers can request an oxygen concentrator after providing few basic details. Once the request is submitted and verified, the company will pick up the concentrator via one of its cabs with a specially trained driver and hand it over to the customer at their doorstep.
Ola will pick up the concentrator from the patient’s house once he is recovered and no longer needs it and return it to GiveIndia to get it ready for those patients who require it.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Chairman, and Group CEO said that during these difficult times we must come together and support our communities. We hope that during these unprecedented times we can provide as much support as we can with this initiative and help those who are affected by this pandemic by alleviating the tension, pain, and anxiety of those impacted.
There has been a visible strain in the healthcare system of India amid the second wave of coronavirus as India has been witnessing a surge in corona cases with over 3.5 lakhs fresh cases daily. There is an increase in COVID-19 deaths due to the lack of medical facilities and shortage of hospital beds and oxygen. As our system has failed, various organizations across the country are offering hands by providing medical aid by donating oxygenators, breathing machines, and ventilators. People are looking for hope of light on social media by posting SOS calls for hospital beds, plasma donors, ventilators, and oxygen cylinders.
Razorpay, digital payments solutions provider has introduced a new feature ‘Donate Now’ on its platform on the payment checkout page of all its merchants. Once the payment is done, the merchants will gain customers’ attention by asking them to donate any amount which will go for the medical requirement of COVID-19 patients. This feature has been enabled by over 2,000 merchants within 7 days of its launch and almost Rs.20 crores have been collected by the partner NGOs that have been raised on the Razorpay platform.
At zero transaction cost, the e-commerce payment system and financial technology company Paytm is offering its Payment Gateway services to all the registered NGOs, on donations of up to Rs.10 lakhs. All the amount raised here will help in providing maximum resources for COVID relief work.
RapiPay, the financial technology company has launched a tool for its users on its website and app to check the availability of the registered vaccination centres in your area and accordingly, register for vaccination slots via CoWIN portal.
Currently, technological intervention is the need of the hour in India. ICreate has launched critical health tech devices with the help of three startups incubated by it that will help in altering ICU ventilators to host multiple patients.
3D printed splitter which is developed by Social Hardware is a ventilator expansion device that provides support to up to 4 patients with single equipment during its shortage.