MDA Tsunami Help

[Coastie for Truth]

David Abadie, MDA's head paramedic and Drorit A'atias, a physician specialized in infectious disease, have been leading our team to the region and with their return summarized their activities in the field:

"During our stay, March 25th - April 8th, we visited 13 different tsunami refugee survival camps. Twelve of the camps were in the Tsnai area in a radios of 30 km and one additional camp was in the Karaikkal region.

In the Tsnai region, we worked on a daily basis with the medical team of the MMHRC Hospital, which included a doctor, two nurses, a camp coordinator, a lab technician, a driver, and a clerk.

We provided medical examination to about 2,300 patients in the Tsnai region. We visited Karaikkal, one of the bigger camps, on April 8th. On that day we visited the camp with a group of specialized doctors from the Mamdoray Hospital, as well as, an additional paramedic and doctor from a second Israeli delegation. In this visit we treated over 1000 patients.

Every day our team arrived to a different camp; the location of the clinic was determined by the local team in one of the public areas which they felt was appropriate, such as near a temple, school, under the trees or when it rained in one of the local people's sheds.

Every patient to arrive registered himself with the clerk and was referred to one of the physicians or paramedics. Based on the diagnosis the patient was inscribed with the needed medication, which he was provided with by the nurse. When the patient was in need of medication which we did not have, he was given an inscription he could take to a pharmacy. When needed, the patients were referred for further specialized medical treatment in one of the hospitals. Furthermore, we checked patients' blood pressure and temperature, had ECG examinations, and other laboratory examinations were performed by the lab technician, such as hemoglobin and sugar levels.

A large part of the patients suffered from upper respiration infections, abdominal pain, anemia, scabies, infections in the eyes and skin. In addition, we detected a number of cases of pneumonia, asthma, allergies, diarrhea, tooth pains, navel infection in an 8 days old baby, and diabetes.

In addition to the medical treatment, we provided the local communities with information on how to keep personal hygiene, cleaning of the camps, waste collection, washing hands and covering excretions with soil.

Final conclusions; in spite, of our limited resources in terms of personal and funds we felt that we contributed a great deal to tsunami victims in the region, who have no source of income nor the possibility to turn for medical treatment. We believe that this situation may last for a much longer period than 3 months, for which reason we advise to continue this project for a longer period of time.

In addition, it should be considered sending more volunteers to work with locals on issues such as protection of the environment, and hygiene in the camps. This message can be transmitted by working with children in the camps and cleaning campaigns.

We would like to point out that our work in the field is based on a close relationship with the local medical teams."

These are the main issues that were concluded by our delegates. I would like to end this News Release with the words of our delegation representatives:

"We feel a great privilege having been able to participate as volunteers in this important project. This enormous experience of a warm human encounter with a population in such a great need, the privilege to have been able to contribute, even in a small scale to so many people will stay with us forever. We felt proud representing MDA in Israel and the non governmental organizations (NGOs) which sent us, as their loyal ambassadors."

MDA is Magen David Adom - the Israeli "Non voting observer" in the International Federal of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies" --- working for peace in the ME

http://www.magendavidadom.org/newsitem.asp?Flash=319