A Medicine Bank has been formed in Noida to help the flood affected people in Assam.
Assam is currently fighting against both COVID19 pandemic and floods.
The formation of the Medicine Bank has been initiated by Dr Pranab J Patar, who was born in Morigaon, which is one of the most severely affected districts of Assam due to floods.
Dr Patar now works as the chief executive of an Indo-American initiative – Global Foundation for Advancement of Environment and Human Wellness in Delhi.
The Medicine Bank has been formed in the line of Roti Bank that came up in Noida to help the stranded people due to COVID19-induced lockdown.
Due to COVID19 pandemic when thousands of people remained stranded in Noida area of Delhi NCR, multiple societies of Greater Noida got together to form Roti Bank with the Noida authority that provided 18 lakh rotis in a span of just 57 days feeding over 3.5 lakh people.
Now, while the whole country is reeling under Covid19 pandemic, states like Assam and Bihar are trying to deal with the deadly floods.
In Assam, more than 57 lakh people have been affected and 136 people have lost their lives while many others have become displaced.
Dr Patar along with his neighbours like Ashish Poddar, in consultation with the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) Morigaon Branch, decided to mobilise essential medicines through in-kind donations from households as relief for Assam’s flood-hit people
The initiative received positive response within a short period.
“Leading social workers Giriraj Bahediya and Brajesh K Sharma also decided to join the forces and within a few weeks, took this initiative to many society/residential complexes across Noida,” Dr Patar said.
“With as many as 12 societies embracing this concept and contributing generously, 65 kgs of medicines for common diseases like fever, cough, skin disease, injury medicine, diarrhoea, antibiotic, skin ointment and liver syrup have already been dispatched to Morigaon,” Dr Patar informed.
The medicines will be further distributed to the needy and sick people under the supervision of Dr Puniram Patar and Paramananda Goswami of the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) of Morigaon district unit, he added.
The Medicine Bank team is very hopeful that if everything goes well, they will soon be sending medicines from their bank to many flood affected areas including Bihar in next few days, Dr Patar shared.