Why Critical Care
The unprecedented surge of COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities in critical care facilities around the world. As the pandemic wreaked havoc on vulnerable populations, leaving many scrambling for ventilators and medical attention, it threw to light how ill-equipped countries were for a health crisis and the dire need for hospitals to re-evaluate their ICU bed capacity.
India & Pandemic
India was one of the hardest hit countries during the pandemic. Projected to become the most populated country in the world by 2030, its healthcare infrastructure struggles to cater to the needs of its burgeoning population. This is exacerbated by the lack of critical care facilities with only 2.3 ICU beds per 100,000 people and the lack of qualified critical care specialists with only an estimated 4,500 intensivists for the 1.4 billion strong population.
There is a dire need for a massive scaling up of ICU facilities and trained personnel. In addition to this critical shortage, delivering critical care in India presents special difficulties because of the diversity of cultures, systems, access to healthcare, and the massive economic disparities within the population. These complexities intensified the challenges of the pandemic response, resulting in a senseless loss of far too many lives.
The cost for hospitals to establish a critical care facility ranges from $50,000 to $500,000 for a 10 bed ICU. The fact that critical care cannot rely on volumes to recoup expenses adds to the complications. For the vast majority of Indians, the prices charged by hospitals that provide life saving interventions are exorbitant. But the right to life is a fundamental one. Even those who are unable to pay for them should have access to life-saving interventions.
Our actions are motivated by this. We concentrate on the element of healthcare that gives every human being the right to have a fighting chance through life-saving measures. This is what critical care entails—life-saving rather than life-prolonging interventions. For Indians who live in rural and semi-urban areas of India, we aim to enhance accessibility to critical care facilities while reducing or writing off expenses. In the end, our goal is to provide India with the means to proactively address future healthcare crises through our efforts and those of others working in the same field.
We are cpr, for life saving interventions.
