AS doctors and nurses work long hours to treat coronavirus patients, a group of friends have come together to provide free, nutritious meals to these healthcare front-liners.

The programme, Meals4Medics, has also expanded to help resource-stressed public hospitals with medical equipment, such as face masks, thermometers and bottled drinking water.

A group of friends started Meals4Medics on Friday after one of them, a doctor, told them of the challenges facing healthcare staff in the front line in the fight against Covid-19.

The campaign received an overwhelming response within the first 24 hours, said spokesman Wong Wei Zhen and managed to collect RM13,000.

It will be delivering its first batch of meals to the staff of Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) today.

“We are starting with 100 meals per day for HKL and we will adjust the number of meals based on their feedback,” Wong told The Malaysian Insight.

As of yesterday, the campaign has received more than RM27,000 according to its Kitafund crowd-sourcing page.

For now, Meals4Medics is collaborating with HKL and Hospital Temerloh. Hospital Raja Perempuan Bainun in Ipoh has also expressed interest in working with the group.

The groups work with local restaurants and food outlets to prepare and deliver the meals to hospitals.

“The hospitals we are in touch with also say they need personal-protection equipment (PPE) and other supplies, so we are dedicating 30% of our funds to these and the rest to meals,” said Wong.

“The proportion of aid will change based on the demands and needs of the hospitals we work with. We hope to reach some of the smaller hospitals outside the Klang Valley.”

Currently, the hospitals in the programme are requesting more thermometers, face masks, bottled water, plastic coats and stethoscopes.

Doctors are reporting an acute shortage of PPE materials, such as masks while Perak lawmaker Dr Ko Chung Sen accused certain suppliers of profiteering.

Malaysia now has 1,306 confirmed Covid-19 cases, the highest in Southeast Asia, according to data from Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

In Asia, Malaysia has the fourth highest number of cases behind China at 81,349 cases, Iran (20,610) and South Korea (8,897).

The number of fatalities in Malaysia stands at 10 people while 46 patients are in the intensive care unit. – March 23, 2020.