A duo of COVID warriors from Mumbai, Dr Marcus Ranney and his wife Dr Raina, are collecting unused medicines from patients who have successfully defeated COVID-19 and distributing them to needy patients.
The couple’s citizen initiative, Meds For More was started on May 1 and within 10 days has collected over 20 Kg of medicines. The medicines are meant for donation in rural areas to primary healthcare centres for timely treatment of underprivileged who are COVID infected.
"We started this initiative 10 days ago. We collect medicines from housing societies and provide them to those who can not afford them," Dr Marcus Ranney told news agency ANI.
"The idea came when one of the family members of our staff got infected from Covid and they needed medication. As you know the medicines can be expensive. At that time there were a few people who had recovered from Covid, so we decided to take their medicines and donate them," said Dr Raina.
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"After that, we took the help from 7-8 people of neighbouring buildings and set up a team and started this mission with the objective of helping those who can not go out to buy medicines or anyone who can't afford the Covid medicines," she added.
"We have now 100 buildings that are sending medicines to us. We are a team of eight people and of course, the volunteers in different buildings. Last week, we collected 20 kilograms of medicines, which have been packaged and given to our NGO partners," said Dr Marcus Ranney.
A wide variety of unused medicines such as antibiotics, Fabiflu, pain relief, steroids, inhalers, vitamins, antacids and others are collected by Meds For More. They are also collecting basic medicinal equipment like pulse oximeters and thermometers.
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Nearby residents have started volunteering to collect medicines as the initiative’s awareness grew.