KARACHI: The provincial health department has initially identified eight districts of Sindh threatened by flood, which has wreaked havoc in Punjab, and declared a health emergency across Sindh with the main focus on these eight northern districts, officials said here on Saturday.

They said the eight districts being considered vulnerable to the coming floods were: Ghotki, Sukkur, Khairpur, Naushahro Firoz, Kashmore, Larkana, Jacobabad and Shikarpur.

The officials said Sindh Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmed chaired a meeting on Thursday, in which he ordered for declaring a medical emergency in the province with particular focus on these eight districts.

“It has been seen in the past that the floodwater carried along with it epidemics and hazardous ailments, therefore, the provincial health minister has ordered all government hospitals and other smaller facilities to remain vigilant to save precious lives,” said a spokesman for the department.

Senior officials informed the minister in the meeting about insufficient staffs and lack of medicines at hospitals and demanded more funds and skilled manpower.

They said the minister ordered that the staff, which was on vacation, assume their duties to strengthen the preparedness of the department for the emergency.

Besides, they said that the health department had requested to the chief minister to provide special funds and equipment to the public health sector to deal with the situation.

The meeting participants were informed about arrangements for medical camps and mobile medical teams, which would be available to serve the people in need.

A monitoring cell was also established and the director general health appointed as its focal person, they said.

The officials were directed to improve their performance and took coordinated efforts with other departments in view of the flood.

In an earlier meeting of the health department when the first flood warning was issued by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, officials devised a strategy to face the imminent disaster in the manner much improved than what it did in the previous four years since Sindh was struck by 2010 floods.

It was decided in the meeting that special attention should be given to pregnant women and safer deliveries and vaccination, etc, must be ensured.

The officials said that such women must be in many thousands if the floods hit only the kutcha area and not the settled areas as it did four years ago and that too required an improved apparatus to take care of them.

Besides, the sources said the department wanted to ensure that the situation not affect the ongoing vaccination programmes in Sindh for which it had an effective programme to target the displaced children.

Apart from its own resources, they added that the government was in touch with donors and non-governmental organisations to accomplish the set targets.

The officials said directives had already been sent to all the district and town health officials asking them to stock and ensure availability of all necessary medicines, including anti-snake venom at all district and taluka headquarters hospitals as well as at the rural health centres and the basic health units.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2014