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Pakistan’s flood victims frustrated with medical care
“Whatever stock of medicines we have is about to finish and the number of patients will increase in the coming days,” said Ashiq Hussain Malik, medical superintendent of Muzaffargarh’s main district hospital in Punjab province. “Nearly 60 percent of patients are suffering from gastroenteritis, diarrhea, skin and eye infections and the patients who are coming here are in a pretty bad condition.” The United Nations has warned of imminent waterborne diseases, including typhoid fever, shigellosis and hepatitis A and E, and vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever.
Some Pakistanis have grown increasingly angry with the sluggish government response, and are turning to charities.
The US State Department says it has been told of a threat from militants to foreign aid workers, complicating the already extremely difficult task of relief and reconstruction.
Aid agencies are warning that with so much farmland under water in a country which is heavily dependent on agriculture the crisis in Pakistan could persist for months.
At least 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres), about 14 percent of Pakistan’s entire cultivated land, have been damaged. “In magnitude and scope this is one of the greatest catastrophes which the WFP has had to handle,” said Josette Sheerer, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP) after visiting flood-hit areas in south Punjab. “We could be looking at a year of food shortages and high food prices.”
Muzaffargarh hospital is treating 1,000 flood victims. People lay on the floor or their own rope beds because of limited space.
“I came to hospital around dawn and I’m still waiting for my number,” Naseem Bibi said as her five-year-old daughter, suffering from diarrhea, slept on the ground. Pakistan may face long-term economic pain because of the floods.
Economic growth, forecast at 4.5 percent this fiscal year, is now predicted at anything between zero and 3 percent. More aid is flowing but more is needed. Arch-rival India decided to increase its assistance to Pakistan from $5 million to $25 million, its foreign minister told the Indian parliament on Tuesday.
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