There is a Chinese saying that goes: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.”
For centuries, the greatest thinkers have suggested the same thing: Happiness is found in helping others.
To this end, Prem Watsa, CEO & Chairman Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. met our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expressed his desire to help underprivileged Indians. The prime Minister suggested that he focus on supporting the worthy cause of affordable dialysis access. Consequently, on behalf of the Group, Prem committed to bring together the partners and resources and contribute significantly to the process of providing dialysis machines to serve patients across the country in areas where dialysis facilities are limited or not available at all. And so the Fairfax India Charitable Foundation (FICF) was established in Mumbai on November 9th 2016. Its philosophy is to support and partner various deserving projects that would positively impact the Indian Community as a whole, irrespective of their social status.
The FICF’s mission is to deploy:
- 1000 Dialysis Machines free of cost to use where dialysis will be cheaper and in many cases free (with Govt support), and carefully chosen partners
- 159 Dialysis Centres in areas of India that are underserved/unserved
- At full capacity, this eco-system will be capable of collectively delivering over 9,00,000 Dialysis sessions/Year, at 40% lower cost than the current market rates.
In less than a year FICF has supported 8 dialysis centres delivering 1200+ sessions per month.
FICF has partnered the Govt. of India through a Public Private Partnership model, supporting the Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Program, and will deploy 466 free-to-use machines.
Statistics show that this, indeed, is not enough.*
- 3 million Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients in India need dialysis or a kidney transplant.
- 200,000 machines needed vs only 25,000 currently available
- 65% of the population does not receive dialysis due to a long waiting list.
- 90% of the dialysis facilities are in the top 10 cities, while 70% Indian live in rural India
- Only 1800 nephrologists practice in India vs 3000 Indian-born nephrologists in the U.S.
(*Given numbers are approximate)
Here is an update on what has been accomplished so far.
This is where all of us in the Thomas Cook Group come in. We can support the FICF’s noble mission by contributing towards it. All of you must have received Abraham’s message ( alongside), sent on 14th February. Remember every single rupee donated, counts towards helping poor and ailing patients in our country.
So do go to the “Click to Donate” button. Or, alternatively you can go straight to the website www.fairfaxindiafoundation.org. Follow the steps and do your bit! Moreover, you can get 80G exemptions for donations before March 31st.
Let us join together and truly “Make a Difference by Saving Lives”, by donating and supporting our parent company’s efforts to ‘create a sustainable social system’. Every little bit counts. Keeping in mind that: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”