| Aga Khan University (AKU)
sent its specialised trauma team on October 11 to Islamabad to assist in the
earthquake relief efforts. The team, headed by Dr Hasnain Zafar, Consultant
General Surgeon, AKU, is stationed at Kah uta Research Laboratories (KRL) Hospital,
Islamabad, and includes experts from surgery, anaesthesia, orthopaedics and
medicine. The AKU team has gone in response to a request to strengthen the relief
efforts at the 170-bed KRL Hospital. Since their arrival at Islamabad, the team
has been performing 15 to 20 life saving surgeries daily.
Speaking from the fully
occupied wardroom, Dr Zafar said that many of the patients arrived with terrible
injuries which required expert medical skills and that the doctors were working
tirelessly to perform surgeries and provide urgently needed care. He also informed
that if the team found patients who could not be treated locally due to lack
of facilities, arrangements were made to fly them to Aga Khan University Hospital
(AKUH) in Karachi. Dr Zafar informed that AKU had donated Rs. 5 million for
medicines, surgical supplies and that the team had brought 1.5 tons of medicines
and surgical equipment with them. He said that AKU was constantly replenishing
these supplies through their funds.
Dr Zafar also spoke of the
desperate state of the patients and said that many did not have a home or any
relatives to go back to when discharged. He said that this situation could worsen,
as more and more patients come in while the ones fit to be discharged cannot
leave as they have no place to go to. He, in particular, narrated the heartbreaking
case of three siblings, the eldest of whom is 12, whose entire family had passed
away leaving them stranded at the Hospital.
AKU’s
earthquake relief efforts began the day of the calamity, with a
donation of Rs.
4 million by AKU employees. AKU is also contributing Rs. 5 million
towards the provision of medical and surgical supplies, patients’
airlifts to Karachi, and setting up and equipping the medical and
nursing teams. At AKU’s Karachi campus, a relief centre has
been set up to collect funds as well as relief goods including food
supply, tents and blankets for the victims. AKU has also sent a
10- member nursing team who are working at the Armed Forces Medical
Institute, Muzafarabad. A third team is departing for the Kohistan
area of NWFP later this week.
These efforts are a part
of the overall Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) relief assistance
through its various affiliates and agencies, which includes AKDN’s
donation of Rs. 30 million along with Habib Bank’s donation
of Rs. 30 million to the President’s Fund for Earthquake Relief.
AKDN has also provided much needed helicopters to Pakistan Army.
FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance, the international emergency relief
agency, has mobilised medical and relief goods to the northern regions.
Aga Khan Health Service, Pakistan (AKHS, P) has also sent teams
of medical professionals to be based in Muzafarabad.
|
