Hughes Krupica community CSR – Baby Care packages COVID patients and children at Rajabat University Field Hospital, Phuket

Hughes Krupica’s team are acutely aware, as are many others, that whilst saturation of COVID19 information has mentally affected many to the point that reports of serious hospitalisations on a daily basis affecting families and communities are described as ‘cases’, deaths are characterised as ‘less significant’ if they are related to ‘existing pre-conditions’ as if to somehow build in a conscious acceptance that people with managed heart conditions; diabetes; who are elderly; carry historic respiratory issues – that there is a ‘lesser’ impact or significance when their lives are shortened by a virus they didn’t create.

Most will remember that in Thailand, at the beginning of COVID19’s global affect, cases were very low. During such time, citizens and residents were subject to decisions on lockdowns, the ‘spraying’ of water and chemicals in communities to ‘cleanse the air’ of COVID19, and serious constraints on movement and the provision of education and other services. Businesses were shuttered and the economy predictably started to move downwards overall. Families already with significant household debt, investors who had taken calculated risks pre-COVID19, visitors and guests were all made aware that the level of power and input of a citizen or guest into how their lives are regulated and managed is nominal as an understatement.

Fast forward 18 or more months, and a completely different approach appears to have manifested itself, leaving a sickening feeling about the real worth of the previous draconian rules and measures, and whether changes on how the pandemic is handled are based more on economic than human health and safety concerns. It is not an easy balancing act for any state to manage, but the standards citizens expect from the civil servants they are supposed to voluntarily empower to look after their interests, have not been met – they have been woefully short. However, there are of course many heroes and heroines in Government and working for the community. They shine brightly and outlast lesser self-interested mortals, in life and in spirit.

That has left a conundrum for private businesses and persons as to how much help is needed in the community, to plug the gaps left by inefficient state mechanisms. How to deliver assistance immediately and when it is needed and avoid bureaucratic and often pointless red tape?

The answer is to just directly deal with local empowered persons responsible for taking care of patients and communities.

That is what Hughes Krupica’s team has been doing and considers the best approach in these difficult circumstances.

The latest CSR initiative for September 2021 was to provide essential items parcels to one of the many field hospitals in Phuket – this time the Rajhabat University Field Hospital. We focussed on childrens’ items such as baby bath gel, baby powder, baby toothpaste, baby toothbrush and baby snacks. These field hospitals are ‘spillover’ locations from hospitals that are already full with COVID19 patients. By nature they are less comfortable and convenient than built hospitals, and are emergency based.

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