Health & Fitness
South Bay Pre-Med Students Raise Funds For India's COVID Crisis
The money is being used to purchase respiratory machines as India is struggling to contain an unrelenting second wave of COVID-19.
LOS GATOS, CA — Two South Bay pre-med students and a doctor organized a fundraiser to purchase and ship supplies to India to assist with the current COVID-19 surge that has devastated the country.
The GoFundMe fundraiser seeks to raise $250,000 for respiratory machines for India. In five days, the organizers have raised more than $29,000 and on Monday shipped their first 15 BiPAPs. Five oxygen concentrators will be on the way Tuesday.
Pre-med students Surya Murthy and Adam Camp are doing the legwork in organizing and soliciting donations, according to Murthy’s father, Dr. Harish Murthy, a pulmonologist whose practice is in San Jose.
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Harish Murthy, a Los Gatos resident, said that several of his close family members in India have died from COVID-19. He was just in India in January to visit his grandmother in Bangalore. During the trip, he stopped by a local hospital that was caring for COVID-19 patients.
“With the resources they had, they were doing a surprisingly good job,” Murthy said to Patch. “This is exponentially different.”
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India is averaging more than 370,000 daily new cases and 3,400 deaths a day during an unrelenting second wave. Hospitals have been overwhelmed, and crematoriums are overflowing. People have been waiting for hours in hopes to receive oxygen for their sick family members.
After connecting with several local experts on the ground, the fundraiser’s organizers determined that there was a critical need for respiratory machines.
Murthy said a friend in India called him recently in tears, because one of his employees who had contracted the virus couldn’t find a hospital that would take him. The employee ended up dying.
The fundraiser’s goal is to help in any way possible, to “get one BiPAP machine that can help someone survive for a few more days.”
For Murthy, the fundraiser is personal, but it’s also humanitarian.
“Anybody who lives in America — we are so blessed compared to these other countries in terms of access to resources,” Murthy said. “Anything we can do will go a long way.”
Click here to visit the GoFundMe page.
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