Australian Medical Task Force welcomed home from Pakistan

Sev­en­ty ADF mem­bers of the Aus­tralian Med­ical Task Force (AMTF) deployed to Pak­istan since Sep­tem­ber have returned home today (Fri­day 29 Octo­ber).

At a wel­come home cer­e­mo­ny at RAAF Base Amber­ley the main ADF body of the AMTF com­plet­ed their last offi­cial duties after an almost 10 week long operation. 

Sen­a­tor David Feeney, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Defence, praised the effort of the AMTF in pro­vid­ing assis­tance to Pak­istan dur­ing the crisis. 

“The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and the Aus­tralian peo­ple are very appre­cia­tive of the ded­i­ca­tion and skill you have brought to the great work you have been doing for the dis­tressed peo­ple of Pak­istan. You have upheld the best tra­di­tions of the ADF and of Aus­tralia. You have added to Australia’s high rep­u­ta­tion in the coun­tries of our region,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said.

AusAID Team Leader, Mr Thanh Le said that most of the dis­placed peo­ple in the flood-affect­ed Kot Addu area have returned to their homes, mark­ing the end of the need for pri­ma­ry med­ical aid.

“Despite the dev­as­ta­tion, most of the res­i­dents in the Kot Addu area have now returned to their homes and the main local gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal (THQ) has returned to a pre-flood patient load,” Mr Le said.

Air Mar­shal Mark Bin­skin, Chief of Air Force said the suc­cess­ful com­bi­na­tion of the Defence and civil­ian med­ical teams had enabled the smooth deliv­ery of pri­ma­ry health­care and brought emer­gency treat­ment to more than 11,000 flood victims.

“The whole of gov­ern­ment effort to assist Pak­istan has been very successful.

“While this marks the end of the med­ical assis­tance dur­ing this cri­sis it does not mark the end of our assis­tance to help Pak­istan recov­er and rebuild from this dis­as­ter,” he added. 

The 180 per­son­nel form­ing the AMTF were deployed on Oper­a­tion Pak­istan Assist II. The Task Force com­prised of: 

• A Med­ical Task Force includ­ing 36 Defence and 28 civil­ian health specialists.
• Spe­cial­ist engi­neer­ing capa­bil­i­ties to sup­port the deliv­ery of clean water to the Task Force and con­struc­tion of accom­mo­da­tion and oth­er buildings. 
• Six RAAF C‑17 Globe­mas­ter flights (14, 17, 24, 26, 29 Aug and 1 Sep) which deliv­ered aid, per­son­nel and equip­ment into Pakistan.

Aid stores and ser­vices deliv­ered by the ADF and AusAID include: 

• 201 fam­i­ly tents; 9,126 tar­pau­lins; and 10 rolls of plas­tic sheet­ing to shel­ter more than 10,000 families. 
• 24 portable gen­er­a­tors to safe­ly pro­vide pow­er to tem­po­rary shelters. 
• 7,420 water stor­age con­tain­ers and water purifi­ca­tion tablets to pro­vide 30 days of safe drink­ing water for more than 7,000 families. 
• 1,962 birthing kits to preg­nant women to sup­port the birth of their child.
• ADF med­ical sup­plies to assist with imme­di­ate health needs.
• Med­ical sup­port in treat­ing around 250 patients a day, total­ing 11,375 patients.
• Treat­ment of more than 3,000 cas­es of malaria. 

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

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