'I just want to help' - Derby doctor Lucy raising funds for Indian healthcare workers fighting Covid-19
A member of Team UHDB is raising funds to help their fellow healthcare workers in India as the Covid-19 crisis continues.
Dr Lucy Mason is an Anaesthetic Specialty Doctor at Royal Derby Hospital. She felt she wanted to lend a hand to those fighting the virus in India as the situation intensified.
She said: “Having worked through the pandemic myself, I just really wanted to help. I’ve got no prior links with India, but seeing what was happening there on the news I couldn’t help but think of the strain healthcare workers there must be under. It’s unimaginable.
“Our local communities were so generous and donated such a variety of things to us during the worst of the pandemic and this support was vital to us. I thought it was only right that I passed the support forward and helped my colleagues out in India.”
After a message to a group chat filled with colleagues, Dr Gauri Sankhe helped Lucy to make contact with the Seva Sahayog Foundation, a non-profit organisation in India which is working towards the development and welfare for the underprivileged section of the urban slum lives.
The foundation will use the funds Lucy raises to provide PPE, nutritional kits, and provide mental health support to those caring for those patients who are fighting Covid-19.
Lucy, who joined the Trust in 2014, said: “Lots of large organisations and governments from around the world are sending oxygen and medical equipment which is great and absolutely necessary, but we need to make sure we don’t forget the healthcare workers to make sure they’re okay.”
“Right now, those healthcare workers in India are going through an incredibly difficult time. To have a shortage of resources must be heart-breaking because they can’t help their patients in the way that they want to and to face that situation every day must be traumatising.”
What started out as target to raise £1,000 quickly escalated, with donations flooding in in the first 24 hours of Lucy’s appeal, and the target was then revised to £3,000.
This has now also been surpassed, with Lucy’s total now standing at more than £4,600.
She added: “The response has been brilliant; I’m absolutely thrilled with how it’s going.“
“Every little bit will directly help healthcare workers in India cope with, what must be, the most horrifying and daunting battle of their working lives.”
Find out more about Dr Mason’s appeal and how to donate here (opens in new window) >
Lucy is not the only member of Team UHDB to be raising funds to help fight Covid-19 in India.
Dr Rajeev Singh, Consultant Gastro-intestinal / Interventional Radiologist based at Royal Derby Hospital, is aiming to raise £30,000 to buy oxygen compressors which will help patients who are recovering from the virus, or whose condition is worsening to avoid them needing hospital treatment.