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| October 23, 2005 | Sunday | Ramzan 18, 1426 |
S. African charity brings aid, idea for quake victims
ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: A swift-moving South African charity has brought much-needed medical and other aid for Pakistan’s earthquake victims, and an idea — wooden houses to replace the destroyed stone and concrete houses with an offer to build one such model village.
The Gift of the Givers Foundation was one of the first few foreign non-government organizations (NGOs) quickly swung into action after Pakistan’s worst earthquake struck several mountainous districts of Azad Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on October 8 and seemed to have made its mark.
The group’s focus is on medical aid and shelter such as tents for the survivors of the killer quake and on reconstruction, the foundation chairman, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, told Dawn in an interview.
He said the foundation, which developed into the largest NGO in Africa in 13 years of its life, was the only group to bring here highly trained medical specialists, mostly of Pakistani origin, including trauma and orthopaedic surgeons, anaesthetists, cardiologists and clinical psychologists.
According to Mr Sooliman, Pakistani health authorities were so impressed by the South African team that they asked it to run the Cantonment General Hospital, which was immediately transformed from a 60-bed facility to a 300-bed emergency hospital. He said the hospital and military authorities were very supportive and his group was able to introduce millions of rupees worth of new medical equipment and supplies and new beds within 24 hours.
According to him, a facility that previously had only half a theatre functioning with only one surgeon and one anaesthetist and without any nursing or support staff and where patients had not been treated for several days, soon had five fully functioning theatres, it had no patients on the floor for lack of beds and had full support and nursing staff available. As many as 250 operations were performed in the first five days until Wednesday, but “unfortunately many adults and kids had to have their limbs amputated because they came late from (quake- hit) mountains”, Mr Sooliman said.”
The group has set up a children’s play corner in the hospital and brought a substantial number of toys, he said. Some children seemed to become orphans as no family members came with them, and Mr Sooliman quoted one child as saying he was the only survivor in his unspecified village.
The group decided to give a cash of Rs5,000 to each patient at the hospital, which amounted to Rs1.25 million in the hospital, which was also visited by South African acting High Commissioner Molisi Mwanda Mesatywa.
SUDHAN GALI FACILITY: The foundation also sent to a 25-strong team of doctors and trauma specialists, including four lady doctors, to the remote area of Sudhan Gali in Azad Kashmir’s Bagh district where 700 patients from high mountains were treated in the first 48 hours. Mr Sooliman said the terrain was “not very suitable” for medical teams to stay there for long periods because of cold and lack of facilities like water and toilets.
In the second phase of its operations, he said his group had brought in 36 tons of supplies worth Rs42 million, including 700 tents, 10,000 blankets and $150,000 worth medical supplies in cooperation with the South African ministry of foreign affairs. He said 1,000 more tents were bought in Karachi and were being delivered. Also 55,000 British pounds worth of 12 tons of food supplies and 300 tents were delivered for quake victims in association with a Britain-based donor who would not like his name to be publicised.
Of them 200 tents were distributed on Thursday and Friday at Kachili village of Muzaffarabad district among people whose homes were flattened by the quake and were living in the open.
While a foundation team of six medical specialists — two orthopaedic surgeons, two anaesthetists, one specialist nurse and one trauma emergency specialist — arrived on Thursday with Rs4 million worth of medical supplies to work at the Rawalpindi Cantonment Hospital General Hospital, another team of 10 nurses and a clinical psychologist to counsel victims would arrive by the weekend.
Mr Sooliman said his group was negotiating with authorities to fly in Rs3 million worth of anti-tetanus vaccine which was in short supply here.
He described South African support as phenomenal and said: “South African people are shedding tears with the Pakistani people”.
Talking about his own assessment of the situation in quake- devastated mountain villages, Mr Sooliman said the entire population there should be evacuated to warmer areas for four months because otherwise people could die from ailments caused by exposure to cold such as pneumonia and bronchitis.
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