Anuradha Paudwal donates 15 oxygen concentrators to hospitals in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh

With the increase in SOS calls for oxygen over the past couple of weeks, people from all walks of life are coming forward to help. Doing her bit, singer Anuradha Paudwal has donated 15 oxygen concentrators to hospitals in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

She got the idea when she decided to let go of her fees for a show being organised for Covid patients and asked the organisers to instead help her with oxygen cylinders.

“The stock is yet to come, but it got me thinking. I have a foundation, which helps people in need... We adopted 10 villages in Nanded for water conservation in the past. And then Covid happened. Every year, on May 9, which is my husband Arun Paudwal’s birth anniversary, we felicitate an artist. It’s been happening for 25 years. We saw people — doctors, nurses, ward boys — working behind the scenes, and I personally talked to some on the phone, and donated a ventilator to a hospital this time,” she tells us.

As news about the lack of oxygen started coming in, the 68-year-old decided to step in.

“I was frantically trying to figure out kahaan se milta hai. I got in touch with Sunil Deshpande ji, he’s my rakhi brother and told him I want to do this by May 9. We were able to put up one oxygen concentrator. I saw people dying while gasping for breath. Then we sourced more oxygen concentrators. The huge government hospitals get resources, I didn’t know what happened to smaller hospitals, so I donated to them,” she shares.

The singer also plans to video call patients in hospital to cheer them up, by talking and singing for them.

She says, “When you’re prepared for a situation so huge, there’s a lot of confusion. Also, so many people try to give their opinions… someone who just has fever and has sneezed a couple of times, Covid ke naam se uske aadhe hosh wahin udd jaate hain. There’s a lot of depression I feel. I was in Delhi for a day recently, and the city buzzing otherwise, had just two cars on the road. I was staying in a five-star hotel, there was just me, along with the receptionist. We need to talk to people suffering from Covid and not keep them aside as if they’re untouchables.”