Governments and people are uniting worldwide for concerted action to combat the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. While lockdowns and social distancing measures can flatten the curve of the pandemic, providing social, economic and emotional support to people is essential. In addition, building resilience of the healthcare system to manage the influx of patients is critical.

As the largest non-governmental healthcare network in India, the Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) is working towards mitigating this pandemic.

CHAI is employing a multi-pronged approach and is working with member institutions within its network, as well as with other healthcare networks. A summary of our initiatives is given below.

CHAI Initiatives


Online Helpdesk to provide Emotional, Medical and Administrative support

A consortium of various organizations, including CHAI, launched a digital platform www.coronacare.life as a helpline for all COVID-19-related issues.

The partners in this initiative include The Project Vision, CHAI, the Sister Doctors Forum of India, TROVA, Vidal Health, Rajagiri Hospital, the Camillian Disaster Services, and the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI). Billion Lives, a social impact technology company, is providing technical support for the website.

The multi-lingual platform has been actively running for more than a month and currently offers four services:

  • Anyone with emotional distress or anxiety can talk to a counsellor
  • Anyone with suspected symptoms can consult a doctor
  • A doctor can obtain specialist opinions from a panel of expert doctors
  • A hospital administrator can seek expert opinions on how to prepare his/her hospital for responding to COVID-19 effectively

Preparedness of member institutions (Hospitals)

CHAI’s network of over 3500 member institutions constitutes the largest non-governmental healthcare network in India and includes hospitals across the country. CHAI is helping its institutions prepare for this unprecedented health crisis through the following activities:

  • Organising webinars within the network on ‘How to prepare your hospital for COVID-19
  • Sharing protocols for managing healthcare services during the pandemic for smaller hospitals to adapt and implement
  • Running a helpline for hospital administrators (coronacare.life)

More than 120 member institutions have attended the first two webinars. CHAI will organise more webinars, with latest updates, in the next few days.

All the related resources have been made available on CHAI’s website at https://www.chai-india.org/covid-19-resources/ to ensure easy access for member institutions.

Sourcing equipment, supplies, and funds for hospitals

Based on the lessons learned from other countries, CHAI anticipates a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), consumables, drugs and equipment to handle the increasing number of cases across the country. India is already facing a shortage of PPE. To address this situation, CHAI is conducting an extensive survey to estimate the materials that hospitals within its network will require over the coming months.

In addition, Member Institutions have reported that since they have to suspend their outpatient services, elective procedures, physiotherapy, etc., they anticipate a significant drop in hospitals’ income. At the same time, the hospitals need to expend resources towards COVID-19 preparedness. This will require a certain amount of financial support for the hospitals to continue to function and care for patients.

Once CHAI collates the estimates, it will reach out to its network of vendors and partners to help member institutions in procuring the required drugs, consumables, equipment and funds.

Socio-economic support to the community

On 25 March 2020, the Prime Minister of India ordered a 21-day lockdown of the country, with only essential services being allowed to continue functioning. Due to this, there may be significant socio-economic distress for a large proportion of the population, especially for the vast number of people in India who are daily wagers and may struggle to support their families.

CHAI is planning an initiative through its member institutions to deliver relief kits to families affected in this manner. Specifically, CHAI is planning to distribute relief kits of INR 1000 per family for a period of two weeks.

We will keep our partners updated on this plan and our response as we combat this unprecedented situation unitedly. Together, we pray and hope that we emerge from this catastrophic pandemic with minimal suffering and distress.

If you have any inputs or feel you can support any of these activities, do reach out at directorgeneral@chai-india.org.

The Christian Coalition for Health of which CHAI is a member has assured the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji their full support in dealing with the Covid-19 epidemic.

Click here to read our letter of support to the PM.

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  • CHAI is member of FIAMC