No government facility, 4 friends build 20-bed Covid centre in Bijnor

BIJNOR: Kamaal Ahmad, his wife and 5-year-old child contracted Covid-19 on April 10. It took 15 days for the family to recover. In that time, Ahmad’s perspective on life had changed. Now Ahmad, a manager with Indian Bank, and three of his childhood friends — Raghav Sharan Goel, a realtor; Nazim, a Jal Nigam contractor, and Bhupender Sharma, a journalist — have got together, pooling their resources, to set up a 20-bed Covid care centre in Bijnor’s Dhampur town.
“It was tough,” Ahmad, in his mid-30s like his friends, said. “My family and I were down. I resolved to fight back. I also vowed that after I am fine, I will help others do the same. Once on my feet, my friends joined me. I began contacting authorities. I immediately got positive responses from people when I spoke about setting up the facility.” The stay and treatment is free at the centre.
It was a small beginning but a much-needed one in a town with no government hospital for Covid-19 patients.
What Ahmad and his friends did was turn a small school into a Covid-19 hospital with 15 oxygen-equipped beds and five without. They also arranged for two doctors and nursing staff.