Australia — Pakistan flood health facility doors open

The Aus­tralian Med­ical Task Force has treat­ed their first Pak­istani patients at the emer­gency health facil­i­ty in Kot Addu.

The facil­i­ty can pro­vide pri­ma­ry health care sim­i­lar to a gen­er­al prac­tice includ­ing mater­nal and children’s health, a ward for day treat­ment, basic diag­nos­tic ser­vices includ­ing x‑ray and pathol­o­gy, a phar­ma­cy and a pre­ven­ta­tive health pro­gram. The facil­i­ty is plan­ning to help up to 200 peo­ple per day. 

Ms Ron­nie Tay­lor, a Dar­win Nurse who treat­ed her first patients today at Camp Cock­a­too said “I think it’s what we expect­ed to see so far, as far as infec­tious dis­eases and pae­di­atric cas­es are concerned.” 

“Treat­ing my first patient here was excel­lent, a real­ly good expe­ri­ence. Peo­ple seem real­ly hap­py to see us and there is a huge, huge need here,” she added. 

The health facil­i­ty sup­ple­ments over-bur­dened health ser­vices in Kot Addu, where more than 27,000 peo­ple are esti­mat­ed to be home­less and over 250,000 are still rely­ing on food assis­tance, whilst Pak­istan recov­ers from the floods. 

AusAID and the ADF are work­ing hand-in-hand with the Pak­istani author­i­ties to pro­vide assis­tance to the flood-affect­ed peo­ple of Pakistan. 

To see Australia’s broad­er con­tri­bu­tion to the floods, go to www.ausaid.gov.au

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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