A major second wave of COVID-19 infections took hold in India in early April 2021. An unpresented rise in cases, which by the end of the month led to over 400,000 new cases a day – with over 3,500 deaths. The whole world was watching, all of us. Indians abroad, calling, organising, looking into ways to gather information and support their families, their communities and health care workers. As were two board members of Health eVillages and the Tramuto Foundation, Anand Singh and Kartik Shah. Both having lost dear family members and close friends, while being far away. Instead of feeling powerless, they stood up, “We lost my nephew today, and couldn’t save him, but no family should suffer this. If we are able to save one person with our support, that one person is someone’s father, mother, brother, sister”, explained Kartik Shah.

Health eVillages is a Massachusetts (USA) based non-profit that has provided mobile medical technology to healthcare providers in remote regions globally since 2011. Health eVillages received an urgent appeal letter from BSES Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai. The hospital is a charitable medical centre that had already treated more than 82,000 patients in Mumbai. However, this had resulted in a severe shortage of medical supplies. The large-scale outbreak had been immense on the health care professionals. With the increasing daily patients, as well as the shortage, they reached out to Health eVillages with an urgent appeal letter. A list containing – among other things – gloves, PPE kits and sanitiser. Claire Barnhoorn, founder of Solvoz, already had held conversations with Health eVillages before. Health eVillages was about to take a subscription to the Solvoz service around that day, in order to provide support to their grantees in the future. Hence, early May, Health eVillages reached out to Solvoz requesting support to assist in their mission to rapidly procure and transport essential medical material to the Bombay Suburban Electric Supply Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai.

What does Solvoz do?

The Solvoz platform provides procurement support to organisations (with a focus on NGOs, charities and health clinics/organisations in low- and middle-income countries). Solvoz also helps them to find the right suppliers, national or international, so they receive competitive quotations and bids. In addition, Solvoz can help them with defining technical specifications, as well as provide auditable documentation. The Solvoz platform integrates a procurement workflow with an open-access solutions catalogue, by and for aid workers, health care professionals, charities and foundations. Solvoz helps to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and integrity of procurement processes.

COVID-19 support

Upon the request, Solvoz’s experts immediately reached out to support the request with defining the right products, including their technical specifications and quality standards. Meanwhile, Health eVillages and the Tramuto Foundation started a fundraiser online – launching a global funding request in order to raise more funding for the BSES Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai.

Support in South Asia

At the same time, Solvoz was about to launch the platform. While it was envisaged to open up in East Africa first, the pandemic and request shifted, which sped up the launch to provide value to the pandemic response in South Asia. With the support of FMO (Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank), Philips Foundation and a Dutch family fund, Solvoz was able to launch with an open-access catalogue that already covered COVID-19 response support materials and solution packages. Among them were PPE kits for several different roles and applicable contexts, for example, PPE kits for medical staff in an ICU, a PPE kit for COVID testing staff (those collecting respiratory samples – including how it scales regarding location, collectors and number of tests) or a PPE kit for cleaning staff in a medical facility during COVID-19. The catalogue therefore already contained the items and specifications ready to go. The sole thing required was to adapt the existing kits for this specific request.

Within five days after launching the tender, various quotations of suppliers were analysed and a framework agreement was established between the selected supplier. Following, funds were channeled from the funder to the hospital to allow the purchase order to follow swiftly. Having a framework agreement in place, it allowed the hospital to procure under the same contract with the selected supplier for the next months if additional funding would become available. With all the items having reached the hospital, the Solvoz team is ready to take on our next challenge.

“On behalf of BSES MG Hospital, with all doctors, nurses and supporting staff, I wish to thank Solvoz for their time and effort. It was a great team effort to achieve this pleasant result. It will not be enough to say thanks to each one of you from the GHRC, BSES Hospital Team, and the entire Indian community, who will receive the benefits, thanks to the creation of Health eVillages by Brother Donato Tramuto and Mr Anand Singh, the initiation of the complete process by Kartik Shah, and the assistance provided by Solvoz.”

– B.K. Yogini (Hon. Director Administration, BSES MG Hospital, Trustee GHRC)