Ham radio operators reach out to people with critical illness

    Kolkata, May 4 (PTI) Ham radio operators have been
scanning the city round the clock during the ongoing lockdown
to get medicines required by critically ill patients of West
Bengal and outside.
    With the help of police, these Good Samaritans have
supplied medicines for cancer, hepatitis-B, HIV positive
patients in several districts of West Bengal and a couple of
Northeastern states, the apex body of Ham Radio operators
said.
    Two patients living in distant Aranghata in Nadia
district and Gangasagar in South 24 Parganas district received
hoomeopathic medicines from a reputed physician's chamber in
Kolkata after these amateur radio operators came forward, said
Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary of the West Bengal Radio Club
(WBRC).
    "With the help of a top disaster management official
of Kolkata Police, we could procure the medicine and passed it
on to these families. The two are among more than 100 people
whom we managed to help during the lockdown," he told PTI.
    These people hail from districts such as East and West
Midnapore, Murshidabad, Nadia, Hooghly and North and South 24
Parganas.
    The WBRC, having 85 Ham Radio operators as members,
has also come to the aid of an elderly cancer patient of
Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, whose son in the USA
could not send him a particular medicine like previous months
because of the prevailing situation.
    Around 30 orphaned children, all diagnosed as HIV
positive, were given rice, dal, vegetables, salt, and cooking
oil after an NGO at Behala in the southern fringes of Kolkata,
that look after them sought help from the amateur radio
operators.
    Three patients of Northeastern states, including a 7-
year-old child, also received their medicines after the WBRC
was contacted by their counterparts there. "Our members
literally combed the city and the neighbourhood to find the
medicines," Nag Biswas said.
    "We have always been on the side of people
particularly during disasters and natural calamities. The
coronavirus crisis has thrown up new challenges to us," he
said. PTI SUS
NN NN

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)