Issue

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers have been relentlessly battling and putting their efforts into protecting others from the unfortunate pandemic. As we acknowledge, appreciate, and support their hard work and dedication, we realize that due to the perpetual calamitous circumstance, there possibly may not be sufficient protective equipment for these frontliners. Therefore, Protect Our Doctors from COVID-19 aims to raise funds in order to provide adequate resources and equipment for healthcare workers who are currently fighting on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. On 12th December 2020, the project successfully raised a total fund of Baht 4,072,045 THB from more than 2,440 donors. We allocated this amount of money to support more than 318 local hospitals in Thailand.

During the pandemic, We divided our work into 2 phases to ensure that frontline healthcare workers will receive needed personal protective equipment (PPE) as soon as possible. We are proud to say that we have successfully delivered great results:

Fundraising now for:

– 300,000 FFP2 Mask (equivalent to N95)

– Expected cost 6 THB per mask

– Fundraising Goal 1,800,000 THB

Phase I

In recent March and April, We successfully procured 4,000 PPE suits and delivered them to 58 hospitals and sub-district hospitals from 48 provinces in Thailand. During that time, PPE suit prices rose greatly due to limited supply and high demand. Many of the PPE Suits which we paid for in March ended up being cancelled in April as prices rose and factories were affected by closures and/or delays (or simply preferred to cancel our order). Nevertheless, We decided to procure some PPE suits even though they were at higher prices to ensure that at least the critical hospitals had some supplies. For other hospitals, we found a private donor to donate 15,250 raincoats to 131 hospitals across 44 provinces. The raincoats were used mostly in the sub-district as their only protective gear when healthcare workers went in for community visits and performed a daily check-up on high-risk individuals. We also found additional private donors who helped produce 5,800 Face shields which we donated to 22 hospitals and sub-district hospitals.

Phase II

Based on feedback from hospitals, we noted that waterproof gowns were insufficient and there was not much public attention to raise funds for them. Therefore, we decided to procure these. We procured two versions of the gown, single-use and reusable. Two of the single-use gowns were imported from Chinese manufacturers, which we decided to pay at a higher than usual price for the faster production and faster shipping to ensure that they reached hospitals as soon as possible. For reusable gowns, we identified a local producer who was developing a special version with a local hospital and procured the same quality at a larger scale to donate to other hospitals across Thailand. In addition to gowns, we also identified a source for high-quality KN95 masks, another PPE item that are in very high demand and urgently needed. The masks we procured come with GB2626 certification, produced by a factory in China where normally supplies to EU markets.

Phase III

is now ready to support!

Unfortunately, On 17th December 2020, Thailand officially announced a “new wave” of the COVID-19 infection. Apart from taking good care of ourselves and preventing the infection, one of the most important things we can do now is to ensure that our healthcare workers, especially those battling on the frontline, are safe. Therefore, it is crucial for all healthcare workers to have adequate necessary protective equipment.

Throughout the process, we have witnessed that our particular funding project has contributed to the decrease of the number of infections and better working conditions for healthcare workers. We strongly believe that Protect Our Doctors from COVID-19 can have a positive impact and make great contributions to prevent the on-going as well as, if any, unfortunate spreading in the future. At Socialgiver, we believe that help must be swifted and it needs no waiting.

Need

Socialgiver Team and other dedicated volunteers have been reaching out to over 300 hospitals and sub-district hospitals from all over Thailand and talking to people on the frontline regarding what resources they need to effectively fight COVID-19.  We also have received requests from medical professionals, non-profits, and volunteer groups about needed gears. Therefore, we shared the collected data  to our affiliate volunteer groups so that they could also reach out and support those who are in need.

Protect Our Doctors from COVID-19 project is established to ensure that all the frontline healthcare workers have easy and swift access to appropriate and sufficient necessary protective equipment so that they can perform their duties safely and prevent the infection of COVID-19. We believe that the success from Phase1 and Phase2 effectively played significant roles in lessening the spreading of the COVID-19 at the time.

Now that the unfortunate situation resurfaces, we passionately intend to be part of the help to support these frontliners and provide them with all necessary equipment in order for them to perform their duties safely and effectively as we have shown throughout the project. Therefore, we decided to proceed with the Protect Our Doctors from COVID-19 project in order to prepare and respond to the on-going circumstance as effectively as we can.