ABBOTTABAD, Nov 15: Doctors involved in relief work here have called for appointment of fulltime orthopaedic and plastic surgeons to save victims of last month’s earthquake from limb amputation.

Chief of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Abbottabad, Dr Raheel Rauf, told Dawn that more than 500 major orthopaedic operations had been performed by teams from the Karachi Port Trust. He said the Accident and Emergency Foundation of Karachi had established an operation theatre, where more than 30 plastic surgeries had been carried out. He said most of the patients treated were children.

He said the foundation would donate the Rs1 million equipment it had brought to the city but its team of doctors would leave and there was no orthopaedic surgeon in the District Headquarters and Women’s and Children’s Hospitals.

Dr Rauf said the patients needed full-time attention of specialists. He said more than 2,000 patients had been under treatment since the earthquake.

Mansehra DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Abdur Rasheed said one local orthopaedic surgeon and others from Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Lahore, Karachi, Holland, Cuba and Germany were performing duties there but when they left the hospital would need specialists.