Doctors and local officials at Saturday camp
This past Saturday September 25th and Sunday the 26th, Real Medicine Foundation held our third and fourth Free Medical Camps for Flood Victims in Aman Garh (Pabbi Tehsil), Nowshera District, Pakistan. This most recent outreach effort was very effective, treating over 4,600 patients in two days, and was made possible by a generous charitable grant by Google Inc. and other individual donations.
In total Continue reading
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:
Click article here for photos and report http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/photos.pakistan.flooding/index.html?hpt=Mid
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For more information about our Flood Relief Efforts, please visit our website.
Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we will be holding many more of these free medical camps for all in need. Full reports with treatment data of all our Medical Outreach camps will continue to be published on our website soon here.
Ali, Dr. Zeba, Haider Ali Vanek, Real Medicine Foundation & Their Friends & Family
INVITE YOU TO AN OPEN HOUSE
On Sunday, August 22, 2010, From 3:00–10:00 PM
AT 10551 WILSHIRE BLVD. UNIT #904, LOS ANGELES, CA. 90024
To Raise Funds, To Spread the Word, To Uplift Spirits And To Pledge To Work Together to Help the People Affected by The Catastrophic Floods Ravaging Pakistan which estimates 20 million without Food & Water for more than 2 weeks!
Real Medicine Foundation is partnering with the Relief Foundation in Pakistan to support the relief efforts with Free Medical Camps in the flood affected areas, and it is with great pleasure we announce that we are holding our first RMF-RF Free Medical Camp this coming Sunday, 22nd of August in the Charsadda district. RMF Pakistan Flood Relief Project
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.
NY Times article here
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.
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,
The reports are getting scarier by the day..the UN is now reporting that as much as one-fifth of Pakistan in under water with new flood warnings being issued today. New York Times article here.
Real Medicine Foundation is responding to the devastating floods across Pakistan by harnessing the energy of local doctors, nurses, and paramedics who want to volunteer their time and services by giving them a platform to conduct free medical relief camps for thousands of flood affected individuals in communities across KPK and Sindh. This cost effective intervention is based on the success of our flood relief camps in 2008 and anchored in our long-term commitment to serve the communities in Pakistan. Since 2005 Real Medicine Foundation and our local partners have been providing primary health care in Balakot and are committed to extending our services where needed.
Every dollar donated to our relief efforts will go directly towards purchasing medicines and supplies for affected regions and towards supporting medical staff on the ground to cater to the urgent needs of flood affected communities.
For more information about our Flood Relief Efforts, please visit our website.
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.
The news coming out of Pakistan is that the initial flooding estimates over the past few days were far too low, with government relief agencies now saying that at least 12 million people are affected and that it is clearly on track to be “the biggest disaster in the history of Pakistan”.
At least 650,000 houses have been destroyed; roads and electricity infrastructure have been severely decimated. Flood victims are so far receiving very little in emergency aid as their government has focused many of its limited resources in recent months on trying to contain the Taliban and at dealing with an economic crisis. In a region of this country already on the tipping point of becoming more disillusioned, it is more important than ever to offer whatever help we can.
Our Primary Health Care Clinic and staff are located in the state of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, directly in the area most affected by the flooding, and for the past week our doors have been open to accept the many flood victims from the surrounding area and villages.
Our Primary Health Care Clinic in Talhatta, north western Pakistan, has opened it’s doors to the many flood victims from the surrounding area and villages. Initial reports from our stafff are that our clinic premises are unaffected but there are many villages nearby that need help. It is fortunate we have such a well functioning clinic in one of the areas hardest hit by these recent floods.
The only other health facilities, the Balakot District Headquarters Hospital and another facility (already strained and ineffective facilities) have been severely damaged by the flooding, leaving RMF’s Talhatta clinic as the only fully functioning health facility in Balakot Valley, an area with a population of 120,000 people. Local government officials have asked RMF to be ready to accommodate the influx of patients they’re expecting. RMF held 4 outreach health camps for flood victims in the same area in 2008 and is gearing up to provide similar assistance again.
According the International Red Cross, two and a half million people have been affected by the devastating floods in north-west Pakistan with at least 1,100 people dead and thousands have lost everything.