Pakistan Floods – Medical Assistance -Save the Children Canada 2010

16 September 2010 - Pakistan is experiencing its worst monsoon flooding in at least 80 years. Government estimates put the number of people affected by the floods at 21 million. Millions of people have been displaced and over 1.8 million houses have been either damaged or destroyed. Assessments to establish the degree to which affected populations are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance continue. CIDA is supporting Save the Children Canada (SCC) to provide essential primary healthcare emergency medical referral services and complementary health promotion education and supplies to flood-affected people in Swat. Specific activities include: the deployment of five mobile health teams including essential medicines and emergency health kits; the establishment of a referral system through which patients with obstetric neonatal and medical complications are referred to hospitals in the district or province; the deployment of 3 SCC ambulances to transport patients to the referral hospitals; health education sessions on personal hygiene and the prevention of water-borne and other communicable diseases; and the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets for prevention of malaria clean delivery kits family health and hygiene kits and newborn kits.