Ambulance services zoom in to help

KARACHI: Ambulance services across the city have tuned into relief activities for flood survivors in Sindh. Besides tackling emergencies, these services are now taking flood survivors to and from relief camps, bringing them food and providing medical services on the go.

The Aman Foundation has gone a step ahead and hired a disaster management team from the UK. The team of 10 people includes doctors, paramedics and disaster technicians who will be sent to different relief camps in Sindh.

Talking to The Express Tribune, one of the team members, Gary Foo, from the UN Civil Military (UNCM), said that they might be used to a different environment in the UK but their training has been comprehensive enough to make them useful here as well.

Moreover, they came to Pakistan in 2005 after the earthquake and so have some knowledge of the region. The team is also going to focus on treating water-borne diseases among the survivors, he added.

Foo is leaving with his team to Thatta and surrounding areas for relief efforts on Friday.

Besides their team of British heroes, the foundation has bought 21 Rigid Inflatable rescue boats. They are collaborating with the Pakistan Navy, National Disaster Management Authority and other government organisations in rescue operations in interior Sindh.

Aman has also dispatched six ambulances with Advance Life Support (ALS) systems and 43 trained staff, including 15 doctors and 15 paramedics to the Punjab, which are working in Multan, Muzafargarh and Layyah.  So far, a total of 5,421 patients have been treated by the EMS team deputed to Muzafargarh and Rajanpur.

In the upper areas of Sindh, where the foundation feels the situation is more in control, they are operating three ambulances with a staff of 16, including five doctors and five paramedics.

With two mobile clinics and a dispensary in lower Sindh, the Aman EMS team has provided healthcare to a total of 1,326 patients in five days. According to their statistics, people are mostly suffering from fever/flu (18 per cent), skin infections (15 per cent), diarrhoea (10 per cent) and eye and ear infections (10 per cent).

The Edhi Foundation is also working for the rehabilitation of IDPs in relief camps set up in 16 different locations by them.

Qamar Pervez, the information in-charge, said that due to the brief respite in terrorism in the city, the organisation has been able to focus a lot of attention on the IDPs. “Just yesterday, 50 patients were admitted by Edhi ambulances from Gulshan-e-Maymar to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. They were suffering from gastro-intestinal diseases,” said Pervez, adding that on Thursday also they transported 15 to 20 IDPs to hospitals.

He said that with the help of generous residents, the organisation is delivering two meals a day to around 10,100 displaced people in camps. They are also giving them other relief goods including clean drinking water, milk and medicines.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2010.