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The emergency ward of the main government hospital in West Bay Township southern pakistan,overwhelmed.
On a recent visit, Reuters witnessed hundreds of people crammed into rooms and corridors desperately seeking treatment for malaria and other diseases that have spread rapidly in the wake of the country’s worst flooding in decades.
In the crowd, Navid Ahmed, a young doctor from the emergency department of the Abdullah Shah Institute of Health Sciences, was surrounded by five or six people trying to get his attention.
The 30-year-old remained calm as emergency services struggled to deal with thousands of patients who arrived from miles away after their home was submerged in water during heavy rains in August and September.
“We sometimes get so overworked that I feel like I’m going to break down and get an IV drip,” Ahmed told Reuters with a smile, smiling as he drank a cup of tea during a brief break in the hospital cafeteria.
“But it is because of the prayers of these patients that we move forward.”
Ahmed is on the front lines of the battle to control disease and death in southern Pakistan, where hundreds of towns and villages have been cut off by rising waters. The floods affected about 33 million people in this country of 220 million people.
An estimated 300-400 patients visit his clinic every morning, many of them children, most of them suffering from malaria and diarrhoea, although Ahmed worries that other ailments will change as winter approaches. be more common.
“I hope the people displaced by the floods will be able to return to their homes before winter; (if not) they will contract respiratory illnesses and pneumonia in their tents,” he said.
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Thousands of Pakistanis who have fled their homes live in camps set up for them by the government, or simply outdoors.
The stagnant floodwaters, which spread hundreds of square kilometers (miles), can take two to six months to recede in some places, and have caused widespread skin and eye infections, diarrhea, malaria, typhoid and dengue cases.
The crisis hit Pakistan at a particularly bad time. With its economy in crisis and underpinned by loans from the International Monetary Fund, it does not have enough resources to deal with the long-term effects of the floods.
Nearly 1,700 people died in floods caused by strong monsoon rains and melting glaciers. Pakistan has estimated losses at $30 billion, with the government and the United Nations blaming climate change for the disaster.
Authorities say more than 340 people have died from illnesses caused by the floods.
“Second Disaster”
Since July 1, 17,285 malaria cases have been confirmed, according to the health department in the worst-hit province of Sindh.
Anticipating the risk of disease outbreaks following the flood relief and rescue phase, the Sindh government is trying to temporarily hire more than 5,000 health professionals in the most dangerous areas.
“Considering the disease burden from the unprecedented rains and floods, we lack human resources,” Kasim Sumro, a provincial MP and minister of health in the Sindh government council, told Reuters.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern about a “second catastrophe” of the waterborne disease that is about to spread across the country, especially in Sindh province.
In Sehwan’s hospital ward, a young man with a high fever was gasping for breath on a bed outside the main emergency room. His mother ran to Ahmed, who tended to the sick, and had a male nurse put a cold pad on his forehead.
The air was full of humidity, and in crowded corridors full of beds, there wasn’t enough air conditioning to cool down. The ward was overcrowded, with more than one patient in several beds.
Ahmed, a graduate of a Chinese university, described the stress he and other medical staff were under.
“Because of the influx, we…can’t wait for each patient’s test results to start treatment,” he said, adding that he started taking malaria drugs as soon as he saw some symptoms.
Sehwan’s institute serves people from neighboring towns and regions, including those living in refugee camps as floodwaters recede and reconstruction efforts begin.
Jagan Shahani’s daughter lost consciousness after having a fever about a week ago. He left the flooded village of Bahara by boat and stopped a car on a nearby road to take them to Sevan.
“The doctor said she had malaria,” he said late last week. “This is our fourth night here. There is nothing to eat here, but Allah has graciously provided everything,” added Shahani, whose 15-year-old daughter Hamida is now recovering.
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