NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, JUNE 18
Amid lockdown, hundreds of patients living across India were benefitted with door delivery of medicines kicked off by the Institute of Kidney Research Centre (IKDRC) in Ahmedabad. The door delivery of medicines was a special service launched by the institute after it felt the need to make medicines available to kidney patients during the lockdown. Post-transplant patients venturing out to look for medicines pose a higher risk of getting an infection, a release said.
Social media to the rescue of patients
“Medicines were not available during lockdown at local chemist shops but a phone call to IKDRC solved my problem. It was nothing sort of a blessing to get medicines at my doorsteps,” said Mahesh Kumar, a resident of Sikar in Rajasthan.
Kumar regularly gets his quota of subsidized medicines from pharmacy at IKDRC campus but due to lockdown he was unable to visit the institute. But the timely door delivery of medicines by IKDRC made Kumar’s life comfortable.
Similar was the dilemma of Surat-based Smita Basant Jain, a post-transplant kidney patient who required follow-ups consultation at IKDRC. She also ran out of her medicine stock. “Just a tweet on institute’s social media handle and arrangements were made for consultation and medicines,” said Jain while expressing her gratitude towards humanitarian gesture by IKDRC. She was on dialysis for the last three years and had gone for kidney transplantation in February this year.
Lockdown posed a bigger challenge for IKDRC as most of the courier and transportation services were not operational. Immediately after lockdown, a team of dedicated staff took over the coordination part and mapped a network of ambulance drivers, police vehicles, hospital staff, and their acquaintances to get the medicines delivered to every patient. Later on, the institute started delivering medicines through Speed Post and still continues to offer this service on demand.
“We knew patients are in dire need of these medicines to maintain their kidney and overall health and these medicines must be delivered in time,” Dr Vineet Mishra said adding that medicines are not only subsidized but were unavailable in the open market.
In the last couple of years, IKDRC has treated over 5 lakh patients, including thousands of transplant patients. “Close to over a lakh patients at different stages of kidney care get their medicines from our pharmacy and we tried our best to extend our support in these difficult times,” added Dr Mishra.
