A medic checks on a Covid-19 patient at a hospital in Bengaluru. (ANI Photo)
Jaspreet Rai is desperately trying to do her part for the country she left more than 30 years ago: help its people breathe.
Rai, 53, who moved to Endicott, New York — the birthplace of IBM — from Punjab, in India, is the founder of Sanrai International, a provider of oxygen concentrators. With India now the epicenter of the pandemic, counting about 3,500 Covid-19 deaths daily, and oxygen supplies running out, Rai has rushed to help her former homeland cope with its worst crisis in recent history.
“This is probably the hardest time they’re going through,” Rai said of her 100-strong staff on the ground, who will supply 30,000 units across India in May, several times the 1,500 Sanrai normally provides in a year. “When you don’t have equipment, and you’re trying to hold people, and they’re gasping, literally gasping for air. And you’re like, look, I’ve sold my last unit, I have to wait until the next stock comes in.”