Apollo Hospitals Launches ‘Project Stay I’
Over the past few months as Covid-19 has spread to cities and countries across the world, we’ve been overwhelmed with strange terms and exponentially growing numbers. Names that once merely described locations are now examples
Over the past few months as Covid-19 has spread to cities and countries across the world, we’ve been overwhelmed with strange terms and exponentially growing numbers. Names that once merely described locations are now examples to fear – Wuhan, South Korea, Iran, and Italy. The streets of Paris, empty. The Haj, cancelled. Tokyo2020 = Tokyo2021. Borders locked down, demands for self-isolation, all to stop the spread of Covid-19.
The terrible power of this disease is not how deadly it is to individuals, but how crippling it can be to health systems. Societies that blink will find themselves overwhelmed. Cases can jump from 200 to 2000 in a week. People needing intensive care and respiration can outnumber the beds and equipment available. The worst is when it takes a health worker, because then you add to the victims while subtracting from our defenders.
The steps taken by Govt. of India in screening, detecting and preventing the extensive spread of the disease has been commendable. How can individuals and moreover, corporate houses aid, augment and support our Government? Stay I isolation is an important point in the chain of social distancing, testing, isolation, treatment and in this cycle of home isolation was considered the best way. However, the reality is that the average Indian home is under 400sqft and over 6-7 people share a bathroom. In that environment, the purpose of isolation is defeated and the whole family is bound to get infected.
To solve this problem, Apollo Hospitals in association with SBI and in collaboration with OYO, Lemon Tree & Ginger are setting up 5,000 isolation Rooms across multiple facilities in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru, New Delhi and Kolkata. These isolation rooms will house guests that need isolation and while Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation ensures remote medical service, SBI will be the financial partner, and OYO, Lemon Tree & Ginger will be providing their facilities. The healthcare workers are going to be stressed, therefore, an innovative telemedicine solution has been devised to create a protected medical layer over the isolation rooms.
The model is envisaged to have a combination of self-paying and CSR funded customers. The purpose of partnering with multiple facility brands is to ensure that all socio-economic segments of society have an equal opportunity to avail these services. A lead form will be made available on Apollo website for a customer and a confirmation for room will be shared within three hours (if available). In addition to Zomato being our F&B partner & HUL committing to supply PPE Kits, Sanitizers, Soaps & other Protective gear, a project of this magnitude or magnanimity will need several partners across the supply chain to come on board. Owing to SBI & HUL’s generosity, 50% of category 1 rooms (Oyo) would be made available for free of cost to those who cannot afford.
The working protocols, functioning and monitoring framework have been developed, and the project was announced on 30th March, 2020. As part of phase 1, we launched ~600 rooms in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai & Delhi. Since we believe our country would need these rooms in large numbers, we therefore created a scalable and replicable model. Apollo will be at the forefront for creating up to 5k rooms along with our partners but are happy to share the mechanism for others.
