IMPORTANT: NACC Work Update

Enepalese Published on: May 10, 2020

Dear community members,

Nepali American Community Center (NACC) wishes you great health and safety as we all are dealing with the unprecedented crisis COVID-19 has caused. We hope you and your loved ones are strong enough coping with the crisis that has hit us all in many ways and forms. This weekly update from NACC gives you the information about the initiatives NACC has taken to help relieve the pain our community members are going through along with some important links and resources as reference items.

First of all, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to nurses, with the following message:

Happy Nurses Week 2020

To

All the nurses – the frontline warriors of this battle against COVID -19 !!

We have faith in you. We will win #WarAgainstCovid-19 with your dedication, selflessness, compassion, professionalism, invincible attitude and firm commitment to serve the community in these times of dire need. Your compassion, courage, empathy, confidence and caring heart makes you

a beautiful human being – A NURSE!

Thank you for all you do!!

Updates:

  1. Emergency Helpdesk (hotline) is established to assist with any needs related to medical issues, psychological/emotional issues or socioeconomic/Logistic issues:

Our volunteers have received a number of calls in all categories that includes but not limited to Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), filing unemployment insurance (UI) claims, Mortgage Forbearance related information etc.

Process for Medical/Psychological Calls (We keep your information confidential):

  • Registered Nurse or Nurse Practitioner picks up the member’s call, member and nurse interact, nurse provides advice, educates, renders compassionate emotional support, and communicates issues/member’s needs to MD.
  • MD interacts with members, assesses/evaluates history and issues, identifies problems, provides interventions, directs and may write prescriptions as needed. When the case is resolved, MD communicates to the nurse and resolution is documented.

Nature of our calls thus far: 

  • Members with COVID-19 symptoms, Positive for COVID-19, Recovered COVID-19
  • Blood Pressure and medication issues
  • Diabetes and medication issues
  • Anxiety and other psychiatric issues
  • Other conditions requiring MD evaluation, problem identification, interventions, treatment and possible medication prescriptions.

List of medical professionals onboard with us to help in this initiative:

Medical:

  • Dr. Narayan Dharel
  • Dr. Birendra Amatya
  • Dr. Prashanta Koirala
  • Dr. Shambhu Aryal
  • Dr. Gunaraj Subedi

Psychiatrists:

  • Dr. Madan Uprety
  • Dr. Sanju Adhikari
  • Dr. Bikash Sharma
  • Dr. Jagadhamba Pandi

Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners

(Training April 18, 2020)

  • Kalpana Satyal, RN, PhD (Trainer)
  • Manju Sangraula, RN, President SANN
  • Bina Khadka Lama, RN
  • Garima Pokhrel, NP
  • Sujana Dhakal, RN
  • Laxmi Regmi, RN
  • Rekha Aryal, RN
  • Balika Gautam, RN
  • Rojina Regmi, RN
  • Ranjana Dahal, RN
  • Monika Mali, RN
  • Indira Shrestha, RN
  • Bimu Risal, NP
  • Rubina Prajapati, RN

Admin:  Sunita Subedi

Process of handling Socioeconomic calls:

We follow the similar approach to the calls received on Socioeconomic helpdesk as well. Our volunteers will answer the questions or direct the call to our second-tier help consisting of subject matter experts.

List of volunteers answering socioeconomic help desks are:

  • Gopal Regmi
  • Suman Timsina
  • Tika Mainali
  • Thakur Dhakal
  • Puru Subedi
  • Dadi Dhungana
  • Pradip Dhakal
  1. Community awareness educational programs

We have delivered a number of highly impactful educational programs for the community and all were watched by a very high number of audiences on facebook live.

  • Information session about the work NACC is doing and collaborating hosted by Enepalese: Click here for the link
  • Health and Wellbeing Session with Ramakant Kharel: Click here for the link
  • NACC’s Facebook webinar about the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). Click here for the link
  • NACC COVID-19 Information session hosted by Enepalese: Click here for the link

Stress Relief Programs: 

In order to meet the psychological and emotional needs, we continue to deliver a variety of stress relief programs in the community and members are taking full benefit while being cooped up in the house.

  • Weekly Zumba dance in collaboration with KC Dance Center, every Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT (in Zoom and live on facebook):
  • Program I   Program II  Program III
  •  Meditation for Stress Relief “Gratitude Workshop” with Shreejana Uprety (in Zoom)
  • COVID-19 Support Group (in Zoom)

(Contact Dr. Kalpana Satyal for additional information on these stress relief programs)

  1. Collaboration and Partnering with other organizations:

In addition to our own effort in providing relief to our community members, NACC has partnered with 27 other organizations to build a network for outreach and to leverage resources. These include NACC Founding Institutional members and others.  NACC hosted 3 meetings with these nonprofit organizations and finalized Terms of Reference (TOR). Details of TOR is accessible here

(If you would like to join COVID-19 Emergency Management Partnering Team,  please send email to [email protected] )

  1. Psychological Resources: 
  • Psychiatrists
  • Counselors (Be Well Initiative (BWI))
  • Psychology/mental health team for frontline workers and the community (Society of American Nepalese Nurses)
  1. Supplies Inventory:

We have purchased medical supplies for over $1800 and here is the list of our inventories.

Surgical masks- 1000

KN 95 masks – 100

Tylenol – 60 boxes

Thermometer – 25

Pulse Oximeter 3

Gloves – 300

  1. Network of Volunteers:

Established the network of volunteers with the leadership of Mr. Dadi Dhungana, Chandra Lama and Prem Poudel to manage supplies and to distribute supplies to needed individuals and families in the DC Metro area.

  1. Upcoming Scheduled Events: 
  • Weekly Nepali Zumba in collaboration with KC Dance Center (Next May 9, 2020)
  • Weekly Health and Wellbeing Session in collaboration with Nepali American Center (Next May 10, 2020)
  • NACC COVID-19 Support Group (Next May 13, 2020)
  1. Building Construction:

     NACC joint executive committee and board of trustee formed a Property Design, Permitting and Construction (DPC) team comprises of 7 members (5 of them are engineers). Team has already started authorized work and rewarded a contract to a company for Phase I of the project after rigorous due diligence. We will send you a separate email with the progress report in a few days.