By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: A 14-member team of Aligarh Muslim University doctors is working tirelessly to provide medical help to the people in the flood affected areas in Bihar. Today was their fourth day in Supaul district.
As usual today also they divided their team into two parts. One team went to Kosi Barrage, a place in Supaul district and the other in Ghata Gobindpur. The teams treated the patients in the relief camps of the area.
TwoCircles.net talked to Dr. Arshad Anjum, a pediatrician and leader of the team.
About Kosi Barrage relief camps he said that there are nearly 4000-5000 people in those camps. Food and other relief materials were in good quantity there in the camps of the Kosi Barrage, no one is starving there. They are getting “Daal, chawal and Alu ki Sabzi (cooked pulse, rice and fried potato).”
But the area hasn’t yet been covered by any medical team and it is a very vast area with lots of people in urgent medical needs.
The other problem that they saw was that the people in this area hadn’t tents, so they had made tents of long clothes like “sarees”.
But these tents cannot protect them from rain. Like today itself when it was raining it became very difficult for them to protect themselves from rain. So they are in urgent need of tents.
Although no epidemic has been reported yet, in case of heavy rain and water-logging, the risk of epidemic may rise. So these people urgently need all kinds of medical relief.
Dr. Anjum informed TCN that some of the patients in the camps were very sick. There were also some cases of skin problem and fungal infection.
When the team was short of medicine it contacted the local authorities in Kerzain, a place before Beerpur in the Supaul district. But the authorities refused to help them in the crisis.
An ambulance from Chhattisgarh gave them some medicines. They bought some medicines also.
The team crossed the Nepal border and visited the area where the actual breach took place. There the team treated the Nepali people in the relief camps, also the Biharis who got the chance to migrate in the wake of Kosi breach. The team treated some Nepali soldiers also.
Dr. Anjum said that soon after their arrival at the place there was a crowd to see them at the news that an Indian medical team has come.
The team met a person from “Doctors Sans Frontiers”. They had a kit which diagnoses cholera cases. With that kit they found out 9 cholera cases.
In first part of the camping, the team treated around 400 patients in the area. In the second part the team went to Ghata Gobindpur, the same area it visited yesterday.
It treated around 1000 patients. As this correspondent called Dr. Anjum he was on his way to their boarding place where both the team would meet. And then more information about the day’s feedback from the second part of the team will be available.
Dr. Arshad Anjum informed that tomorrow his team will visit Kosi Barrage again as the place is too vast to be covered in a single day. And the second team will gear towards Surjapur.
This 14-member team of AMU doctors will work in the flood affected area till September 24, 2008.