IBM India/South Asia Blog

IBM responds to COVID-19

May 26, 2021

At IBM we are mobilising the collective power of the IBM family around the world and doing everything we can to save lives every day. With 98% of our employees in India working from home- employee health, safety and well-being continues to be our top priority.

We have put together a comprehensive support plan for our employees and their families to tide through this pandemic.

Essentials Support :

  • Vaccination for all IBMers:  Vaccination camps will be opened (in line with Government regulations and availability of vaccines) in all major cities with IBMer populations. IBMers and their family members will have the option of getting vaccinated at hospital centers or camps at selected IBM locations. We are working closely with the concerned authorities on this
  • Dedicated 24X7 Medical Helpline with Protea: IBM has launched a dedicated helpline through Portea Health Care Services - for a variety of services including doctor consultation, medical/home care services, and testing services. This helpline is the first point of contact for support for any medical help.
  • Access to Oxygen Concentrators
    IBM has procured oxygen concentrators to support IBMers and their family members. We have partnered with Portea Health Care Service to deploy these oxygen concentrators across Bangalore, NCR (Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida), Kolkata, Chennai, and Hyderabad.
  • Eldercare Support with Samarth: IBM has partnered with Samarth, one of India’s leading organizations supporting the elderly by creating a COVID care system. Samarth will help the elders deal with the pandemic by providing 24/7 emergency assistance, home care resources, medicines, doctor tele-consultations, food services, oxygen, and requirement for other equipment as needed.
  • COVID Care Center: We have worked with Apollo Hospital to offer medically supervised “step down” facilities at designated hotels in every major city where IBMers and immediate family members can quarantine in case it’s not feasible at home.
  • Emergency Transport for Medical Needs: We are offering an emergency transport facility 24x7 for medical requirements for both employees and their immediate family members who are COVID-19 positive (for transport to a medical facility) and those who are COVID-19 negative (for procuring medical supplies or attend to impacted family members).
  • Additional Insurance Coverage: IBM is providing additional insurance coverage for each insured employee and their covered dependents (spouse and children) for up to Rs. 5 Lakhs per member covered.
  • Meal Delivery Service
    We have tied up with HungerBox for the delivery of freshly prepared meals, ensuring the highest levels of hygiene and safety measures. The service is currently available in Bangalore, NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, and Vishakhapatnam.

Leverage the Power of Tech for good

  • COVID Assist: We have launched COVID Assist, a Watson Assistant powered AI bot, to channelize the requests around critical resources such as ambulance, oxygen, medicine, hospital beds, in an efficient manner. It will also help you connect with the IBM Squad volunteers on ground.

Mobilizing the collective power of the IBMers 

  • IBMer volunteer COVID squads: We have organized squad groups staffed by IBMer volunteers to take service requests and match them to verified sources of available resources - Hospital Beds, ICUs, Oxygen requirements, ambulances, medicines, and more.  With over 2000 volunteers already signed up, this is really making a difference to quickly triage requests and ensure that needs are matched to resources available nationally.
  • While we do this, employee health and well-being remain a key priority for us. We have set up several employee support groups across cities to provide employees with a platform to discuss issues, challenges, concerns, and coping mechanisms such as managing stress, staying active, and promoting self-care.
  • IBM has partnered with United Way of India to drive an employee giving campaign. Employees can donate financially to the NGO who in turn are working with several partners at the ground level to provide critical and emergency care for the community.
  • IBMers are volunteering to become first responders on Covid-19 helplines through a collaboration with StepOne. StepOne is an NGO having an interface with 18 state governments and is helping to train & deploy volunteers to respond to queries on the government helpline.

Leveraging our voice and influence to rally global support

  • IBM is playing a key role in Global Task Force on Pandemic Response launched by the US Chamber of Commerce to aid India and other Covid-19 Hot-Spots. This includes Sourcing, shipping and delivering 1,000 ventilators; 25,000 oxygen concentrators and working with local partners to fund emergency hospital beds in communities where our teams live and work.
     

In addition, we are also closely engaged with the government and government agencies in India to offer our support and we are ready to do more.

We would like to thank our employees, volunteers, and ecosystem partners for their support and cooperation in these trying times. Together we can win and emerge stronger from the pandemic.

Blog Categories