The Turkish Ministry of Health has set up two oasis hospitals in the region to treat the wounds of flood victims. Doctors here are also doing their best to fight possible outbreaks of disease and to try to listen to their patients and share their pain the best way they can. The only problem Turkish doctors complain about is having to be away from home during the holy month of Ramadan.
The ministry has set up hospitals with 20 doctors each in Khairpur and Sibi to serve the locals. The doctors report malnutrition-related health problems, diarrhea and skin diseases as the top medical maladies in the region. Mobile teams of family health experts are also serving in the area. The hospitals have internal and external medicine, gynecology and children’s diseases units. The doctors say the main cause of illnesses they treat here is lack of hygiene. Cemal Bulut, the chief doctor at one of the Ministry of Health’s temporary hospitals and a clinical biology expert in infectious diseases, stresses the lack of education among the public at this point. He said the hospital’s mobile teams had walked around the area and added chlorine to local water sources to protect the locals against outbreaks of diseases such as cholera.
Nurse Nursen Güler spoke about the extremely difficult living conditions in Pakistan and said the medical teams are exerting their best efforts despite all the difficulties they have encountered. They arrived in the nation two weeks ago, and Güler says she already misses Turkey. The team they are working with at the Sahra Hospital is a good one, Güler says, adding that they have treated a low number of patients. The local administration is experiencing coordination problems when it comes to health care, she notes, asserting that they have the capacity to treat more patients than they do.
Aid is continuing to flow in from Turkey, which refuses to allow Pakistan to stand alone during these dark days. A cargo train of supplies is sent to Pakistan every week, while physicians from Doctors Worldwide and the Kimse Yok Mu Association are on duty in the country. Eight staff members from Doctors Worldwide have been assigned to the flooded region; more doctors are on stand-by should health problems worsen.
