More than seven weeks since the beginning of the floods, and as we prepare to hold our third major Flood Relief Medical Camp in the city of Pabbi in the Nowshera district, it’s important to note how critical the situation remains in Pakistan. We will be reporting next week on the results of our next relief camp this coming Sunday, and hope to continue expanding our relief efforts.
From CNN.com, this slideshow and brief article highlights:
Areas of Pakistan are still submerged in water, weeks after the first flooding happened
The UN and other organizations are calling for more help in aiding the estimated 20 million in need
Continuing with the coverage of the floods in Pakistan and what this means for our clinic in Balakot, I came across a good article from the New York Times that details why it is so important for Western Countries, the US in particular, to lend a helping hand to the people of Pakistan.
Time and time again, the poor and rural areas of a country like Pakistan are left behind infrastructure, economic development and health care, ,and with no one else offering a helping hand fundamentalist groups like the Taliban will always step in to fill this void. Looking at the amount of resources the US has already committed to both Afghanistan and Iraq to combat extremism, it would be a tragedy to let this opportunity pass to aid these efforts and to improve our image in this part of the world.
Based on some of the comments in this article from officials in Washington, it sounds like this is understood, so we can only hope that these are more than promises, and that funding and resources arrives quickly.
For more information about our Flood Relief Efforts, please visit our website.
To contribute to our Flood Relief Efforts, please click the Donate button below or through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.
Our biggest thanks usually come from the people we help in the field, but sometimes they also come from our donors, which is always pleasure to see. The letter we are sharing below was just sent from an Pakistani-American, Dr. Zeba Vanek, to our founder, Dr. Martina Fuchs, thanking her and RMF for all our efforts in Pakistan since 2007 and specifically for our current Flood Relief campaign. Zeba also used her own network in the US to raise funds for the flood relief campaign and continue to be a great advocate for our cause.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Dear Martina,
I wanted to respond to your email in which YOU have thanked ME! I find that quite incredulous!
I am an American of Pakistani descent. I am 50 years old and moved to the USA at the age of 32. I consider myself one of the most privileged persons in the world. Most of the blessings that have come my way, I feel have I received from Pakistan. These include my mother, my husband, an opportunity to get a good education, great friends and family, all the necessities of living like food on the table, a good roof on my head, access to healthcare, civil liberties and in short everything that a human being needs to thrive and live a life of freedom, dignity and happiness in this world. What I got from Pakistan during the earlier years of my life, equipped me with the abilities to become one of the most privileged and blessed immigrants to the USA!
And so my friend, and I truly consider you to be my friend, besides everything else that I think you are………it is not you or the other people who work with you, to serve humanity with utter selflessness and integrity, who should be thanking me……the people who live in Pakistan today or who live abroad as immigrants in other countries……need to thank YOU, with all our earnestness and sincerity, for what you have done and are doing for our nation. THANK YOU!….. and may God bless you in every possible way for all the good that you do. I pray that we, of Pakistani descent, also show people of other nations, the same courtesies they have shown us.
Good news….. People have sent about $3000/ – more in checks since we last communicated and Sarah…..I’m very hopeful that people will be very generous during this very difficult time for Pakistan.
With best wishes,
Dr. Zeba Fatima Vanek
Neurologist, Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurology, UCLA
If you are interested in donating to the Flood Relief Campaign or any of our other efforts, please visit our website or click on the Donate button below.
Due to the continued bad weather in Pakistan and the enormous number of people affected by the widespread flooding, the human scale of the flood devastation is on an almost unimaginable scale. UN is now estimating that the total number of people affected exceeds the Tsunami, Haiti earthquake and 2005 Kashmir earthquake all combined.
Real Medicine is very busy trying to ensure that our established health clinic in this region is able to handle the huge influx of new patients, and also fundraising to be able to provide several health care outreach camps in the areas that aren’t able to access out clinic or other hospitals.
We are entirely locally staffed and partnered with Pakistan relief agencies to deliver the health care needed, so we don’t have the same “foreign aid” conflict that many organizations are struggling with in this region of the world.
According to the Guardian news:
“The devastation continued as the UN said the number of people suffering in the floods in Pakistan exceeded the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. While the death toll in the three earlier tragedies was much higher than the 1,500 people killed so far in the floods, the UN estimates that some 13.8 million people have been affected – at least 2 million more people than in the other disasters put together.”
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