Crowdfunding: Saving Million Lives

With the lack in medical infrastructure, crowdfunding is here to save the day

- Rajat Mishra

On December 2018 a baby boy was found in a nallah in Ambernath, Maharashtra. After being picked up by Shivaji Ragade, 35, he was admitted in the nearby hospital in Ulhasnagar. But on being diagnosed with serious brain infection, the baby was moved to Wadia hospital, Mumbai. Shivaji spent all the money during his treatment in Ulhasnagar. As the treatment cost was huge in Mumbai, the hospital got in touch with crowdfunding organisation Ketto and successfully managed to get 10.39 lakh within 24 hours. Puja Bhatnagar from Delhi received a sum of 25 lakh with the help of 394 donors within 39 days for her liver transplant.

These are not only stories to quote, but in reality many times these crowdfunding organisations have successfully collected funds within 24 hours and saved numerous precious lives.

Many sitting on the pavements outside India’s premier medical institution AIIMS, testifies that our public healthcare sector is in dire state. Thus the patients end up spending months and weeks in front of the government hospitals, waiting for their treatment.

This reveals the lack of infrastructure in the government hospitals and their inability to cater to everyone. Thus to meet medical exigencies, people have to get their near and dear ones treated in private hospitals, where the cost of treatment is sky-high. The only option that they are left with is, either they have to take loans or turn to relatives and friends for help. Thereby falling into a medical debt trap!

But to these grave problems, one thing that has come as a panacea is the concept of medical crowdfunding. It is simply a process to raise money from the people and the society, to help people. There are multiple players in this medical crowdfunding industry, those who are doing remarkable work in this direction. ImpactGuru, Milaap and Ketto being a few.