It will be run by Hinduja Hospital from today; equipped with oxygen and ventilators; housekeeping and meals by Khan’s Meer Foundation
Linah Baliga (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 8, 2020)

Two months after Shah Rukh Khan’s office in Khar was turned into a quarantine centre for asymptomatic Coronavirus patients, the BMC has further converted the superstar’s facility into an ICU for critical patients.

The 15-bed facility will be operational from today, in association with Khan’s Meer Foundation, Hinduja Hospital in Khar and the BMC. Khan had offered his four-storeyed office on C D Marg to the BMC in April, but it couldn’t be taken over until May-end due to lack of doctors and healthcare workers. It was acquired after Mirror’s report on May 29. The work to upgrade the space into an ICU facility began on July 15 and isolated patients were shifted to another centre.

Executive director of Hinduja Hospital (Khar), Dr Avinash Supe said the current need for the pandemic is more ICU beds with oxygen tanks and ventilators. He said the space will have six beds with central oxygen facility on the first floor and five ICU beds and four standby beds on the second floor.

Dr Supe said, “It has been equipped with ventilators, oxygen lines, high flow nasal oxygen machines and liquid oxygen storage tanks for high-risk and critical patients. The service will be run by Hinduja Hospital under the guidance of the BMC.”

Assistant commissioner of H-West ward, Vinayak Vispute said it has been decided that Khar Hinduja Hospital will provide 24×7 resident doctors, nursing staff and paramedical staff, who will replicate the hospital’s expertise in running the oxygenated and ICU beds. “This will be like an alternate hospital for the citizens of this ward,” Vispute said, adding that Khan’s own Meer Foundation will look after the day-night security, housekeeping, waterproofing, upkeep of the beds and meals.

In the time that the facility was functional as a quarantine centre, 66 patients were admitted here, of whom 54 were discharged after recovery. However, 12 had to be transferred to other facilities as the space needed to be upgraded to an ICU facility.

On April 24, Khan and his wife Gauri had announced a slew of initiatives to help the state government in its fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. One of these was offering Khan’s office as a quarantine facility with 22 beds.

Prashant Singh (HINDUSTAN TIMES; June 4, 2020)

Every morning, when she wakes up, Farah Khan doesn’t have just her family or loved ones on her mind but also many others, who “are going through unimaginable situations” during the Coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing lockdown. “I have a simple mantra: I must do one good deed every day,” says the 55-year-old filmmaker.

Be it getting sanitary napkins for lady cops, arranging for masks and groceries, distributing water bottles among migrant labourers, helping a lady in Chennai who takes care of street dogs (after reading a story in HT City/Café’s special section Six Shots of Life) or now, “initiating the process of sponsoring” the education of Jyoti Kumari Paswan (the 15-year-old girl who cycled with her father from Gurugram to Bihar’s Darbhanga), Khan has been at it, without break.

“Not just me, there are so many people who want to do good work but don’t know how to do it. But at the same time, I am so proud of my friends such as Sonu Sood (actor), Vikas Khanna (chef) and even Shah Rukh (Khan; actor) — who is doing amazing work through Meer Foundation,” says the Main Hoon Na (2004) director, whose 12-year-old daughter, Anya, has raised ₹3 lakh through her sketches. “Till date, Anya — who is an animal lover — has done about 150 sketches. It’s nominally priced at ₹1,000 per sketch, but people have paid more as well,” she says.

The money has been used to buy groceries for people in slum pockets of areas such as Thane, Kalyan and Juhu Galli in Mumbai. The lady in Chennai was also helped through Anya’s sketch money.

Reportedly, politician and environmentalist Maneka Gandhi even wrote a mail to Khan, expressing how she was “very impressed” by Anya’s work. Ask the filmmaker about it, and she says, “I’ll continue to do whatever is within my capacity. I lived through a poor childhood. Probably, that’s why I’m empathetic towards people, especially the poor. I’ve worked very hard — and also had God’s blessings — to reach where I am today. So, the idea should be to give back to the needy when you have enough.”

The four-storey building that Shah Rukh used as his office has been equipped with 22 beds, but the BMC has no staff to make it operational
Chaitanya Marpakwar (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 29, 2020)

Among the isolation centres for asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic Coronavirus patients that the BMC has identified but hasn’t been able to make operational due to lack of doctors is a four-storey building in Khar West that belongs to Shah Rukh Khan. The actor and his wife had their offices in the building, which is located on CD Marg. On April 24, the couple handed over the property to BMC to help expand quarantine facilities in the city.

Shah Rukh, through his NGO Meer Foundation, set up 22 beds in the building. “This crisis is not going to pass in a hurry; it will take its time and its toll on all of us. It will also show us that there isn’t really a choice between looking out for ourselves and looking out for one another,” Shah Rukh had said in a statement last month.

More than a month on, after profusely thanking the actor on Twitter for the gesture, not one patient has been moved to the facility. This, when scores of Mumbaikars are complaining about lack of beds for Covid patients in public and private hospitals. H West Ward, where this property is located, has reported more than 450 Covid cases and over 60 casualties.

On Wednesday, this newspaper highlighted that a 125-bed isolation centre at the Mulund octroi naka, which is ready since May 20 but is yet to open, because there are no doctors to man it. The BMC was also forced to shelve a plan to add 100 beds to another isolation centre in Mulund because of a severe shortage severe shortage of doctors (‘No doctors to man 125-bed Covid care centre at Mulund’, MM, May 27).

While Shah Rukh and his team did not respond to emails and messages from this newspaper, Congress leader and corporator from the area, Asif Zakaria, admitted the BMC wasn’t able to find doctors to run the facility. “On one hand there is a severe shortage of beds for Covid patients and even those with other ailments, and on the other hand an entire building is not being utilised. The BMC must do something about this; rope in private practitioners, get in touch with hospitals, but the facility must be used,” Zakaria said.

He said the BMC has reached out to Hinduja Hospital in Khar, but things have been delayed due to “bureaucratic red tapism”. The H West Ward’s assistant municipal commissioner, Vinayak Vispute, claimed that the facility will be opened today. “At one stage we were planning to use the facility for the municipal staff that is Covid positive. Also, toilets had to be constructed on each floor of the building,” he said.

Denying Zakaria’s claims of red tapism, Vispute said the deal with Hinduja Hospital has been finalised and it will provide staff to open the centre on Friday. “Doctors and nurses from the Khar Hinduja Hospital will report to the facility on Friday,” he said.

Mirror reported on Wednesday the BMC’s desperation to fill up vacancies at Seven Hills Hospital – one of the largest Covid facilities in the city – by offering double the average salaries to doctors and roping in job portals for advertising the vacancies (‘SevenHills Hospital launches nationwide hunt for 600 doctors’, MM, May 27).

Sacred Games actor Rajshri Deshpande arranges supply of essentials for Pandhari residents; seeks help from Shah Rukh Khan to procure PPE kits for Aurangabad doctors
Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; April 20, 2020)

Sacred Games actor Rajshri Deshpande may be miles away in Kerala, but over the past four weeks, she has been ensuring that essentials reach the doorstep of every farmer in Pandhari, a village in Maharashtra that she had adopted in 2015. On Saturday, it was brought to the actor's notice that doctors in her hometown, Aurangabad, are facing a scarcity of personal protective equipment (PPE) kits. Deshpande promptly took to Twitter to highlight their plight and sought help from Shah Rukh Khan, who recently provided 25,000 PPE kits to the healthcare workers in Maharashtra.

"I had no choice but to ask Shah Rukh Khan for help. His foundation [Meer Foundation] has been doing commendable work in the current scenario. We need 2,500 PPE kits in Aurangabad. We haven't received a reply from his team, but I am hoping they will come forward to support us," says Deshpande, who had gone to Kerala for a two-week detox therapy in March and had to extend her stay in the state due to the nationwide Coronavirus lockdown.

The actor notes that the situation in Aurangabad is telling of how healthcare workers in the interiors of the country are ill-equipped to battle the crisis. "It has been over 20 days into the lockdown and the kits have not reached the doctors in the interiors. They are scared to attend to the patients without taking the necessary precautions. We need to take care of our doctors. This only shows that we are unprepared [to deal with the pandemic]." She also offers a word of caution about the PPE kits that are doing the rounds in the market. "Recently, I had sent a few kits to Aurangabad, but it turned out that they did not include N95 masks, and the remaining gear too had defects."

Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 30, 2019)

Deepika Padukone has kick-started her debut production, Chhapaak, in the Capital based on the life of a real acid-attack survivor, Laxmi Agarwal. More quietly, working behind the scenes, her first co-star, Shah Rukh Khan, through his NGO, launched an initiative on International Women’s Day under which he has sponsored the corrective surgeries for 50 burns and acid attack survivors, performed in two hospitals in Delhi and Varanasi respectively. SRK’s foundation will conduct approximately 40-50 more surgeries in hospitals in Kolkata.

The initiative is very close to his heart and last year, SRK was honoured with the Crystal Award for his work for acid attack survivors at the World Economic Forum 2018 in Davis. “We have been working on it with a quiet focus since the past three years. Meer (foundation) supports victims of acid attacks by providing a holistic approach to their rehabilitation. With this in mind we launched our new initiative and I am thankful to our brave survivors and the doctors, lawyers, hospitals, NGOs and volunteers who are helping us with our cause. I hope to bring together more like-minded people and hopefully, put an end to acid violence in the near future,” the actor says fervently.

Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 4, 2018)

Shah Rukh Khan who recently attended the send-off hosted by the Paralympics Committee to the Indian contingent taking part in the Asian Para Games 2018, further extended his support to the para-athletes on Monday, International Day of Disabled Persons, by donating 50 wheelchairs. The actor’s NGO, Meer Foundation, has been working closely with Deepa Malik and her foundation, Wheeling Happiness, to smoothen the journey of the athletes as they take the field.

“It has been a privilege knowing and associating with Deepa for a cause as virtuous as this. She is not just an inspiration to many but also a reflection of ourselves as we all are incomplete in one way or the other, and it is for us to embrace our imperfections and achieve our goals. Felicitating these para-athletes is a step forward in achieving the dream of representing India at the Paralympics,’ asserted SRK.

Deepa, the first Indian woman to win a silver medal in shot put the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games, described his contribution as a “gracious step” as it “not only facilitates the athletes but also motivates and boosts their confidence”.

SRK’s foundation also provides support to acid attacks survivors and those who have sustained major burn injuries, helping with their medical treatment as also offering legal aid, vocational training, rehabilitation and livelihood support.