Petarian - Abdalian Relief Efforts

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Progress Report of Nov 26-29, 2005

Air Commodore Nayyar and I left shortly after 3am to be able to get to Bagh early in the morning. It was already raining, which slowed us down very much. The landslide areas in particular were muddy, which was also hazardous for the vehicle. We arrived finally around 10am.
We had a meeting with the District Health Officer, WHO officials and other NGOs who are operating in Bagh District for providing medical facilities at 10am. Each organization was required to submit a report of its activities and to establish coordination between all the organizations working in the area. The foreign NGOs there were from Australia, Malaysia, Qatar, NATO forces. The most prominent of local NGOs was PIMA. The only NGO operating in the tehsil where we are located are the Qataris, who have set up a 40 bed hospital at Dhulli. Interestingly, none of the other NGOs are working in the villages like we are. All others have set up their medical facilities on the main road and expect the patients to come down to them. We will be the only ones to be offering primary care almost at the doorstep to these villagers
After the meeting, we met with the District Health Officer separately to draw up an agreement officially with the AJK govt. The DHO requested me to write it out. So we took a break and upon return to our camp, I wrote up a 2 page MOU / Agreement that was signed between us and the DHO representing the AJK govt later on in the day. This was a great achievement for us, since this gives us proper legal status in the area. The terms of the agreement are as follows

TPF/Abdalians will take total control of the Basic Health Units at 4 locations - Rerah, Lohar Bela, Samni and Seri Gala. All staff at these BHUs will report to us and we will manage them, although the salaries of the staff will be paid by the AJK govt. We will take care of the expenses of our staff only.

We will be responsible for total management

We will reconstruct these four BHUs using earthquake resistant and energy efficient materials

The agreement will be for a period of 6 months, and it will be renewable based on mutual consent.

We will provide all the medicines and supplies as required.

AJK govt will provide vaccines and other supplies which they normally do.

The present staff at each of these units includes medical technicians, vaccinators, lady health visitors (LHVs) and lady health workers (LHWs), dayahs, sweepers, water carriers, guards. We will primarily by providing doctors and administrative staff.

We will be basing one vehicle to transport our doctors and staff to the different BHUs daily. We expect to establish clinic at each location at least every alternate day.

We are already operating a daily clinic at Rerah, where we currently get around 60-100 patients every day.
We also had an extensive meeting with Brig. Naeem Sadiq, Commander of 22 Brigade which controls that region. We have full support from him and his staff.
Brig. Naeem Sadiq has also conceived and funded another interesting project in the area. He has been able to secure a 99 year lease from the AJK govt for a 200 kanal piece of land close to Bagh city at a place called Bhont. He has funding to construct 100 homes for poor and needy families, which will be allotted to them on a permanent basis. He wants us to take total control of the management of this community and to set up a healthcare unit there as well. It will also entail setting up a school as well. The community management will include programs for healthy development of that community in addition to providing basic civic facilities like cleanliness and hygeine, maintenance of green areas, maintenance of the homes and roads and utilities, etc. In principle, we have agreed to manage this community, and hopefully develop this as a model community in that area.
Imran Latif has been working with the brigadier over the past few days to develop a balloting software that will transparently allot these homes to the most needy families.
Nizamuddin Siddiqui visited the camp and stayed there for 2 days. Nizam will be writing a story for us in DAWN newspaper. He left back for Karachi on Sunday. Thanks Nizam.
Imran Latif left the Rerah camp today after having spent a week there. Thanks Imran.
We have now taken on the services of Mr. Arif Mir who will take on administrative duties at Bagh for construction, management of health units and the community development project.
We acquired one Hyundai Shehzore pickup truck today which will be based permanently at our camp for use by our staff and for the movement of the doctors. We also obtained one motorcycle and a back up generator which are also being shipped to the site.
As soon as our facilities are constructed at Rerah (hopefully by this weekend), we will be equipping it with a computer/printer, fax machine, plus medical equipment so that we are able to offer a better level of service.
We got back to Islamabad on Sunday night after another 7 hour drive due to the rain.
I would like to mention here that the weather reports in the newspapers are a bit misleading. There is no doubt that it is getting cold by the day, and the rains are making the conditions difficult. However, there is NO snow whatsoever in Bagh or at Rerah. The only snow that has fallen are light flurries on the mountain peaks above 8,000ft altitude. No snow is expected in the Bagh valley for at least another 3-4 weeks. But it will get chilly during the nights. The day time is still rather pleasant.

We did have a problem in our camp due to the rains. The ropes of the main tent were not properly tightened. Thus, the water accumulated in the sacs formed on top of the tent, which caused the tent to become unstable. Our boys then had to get rid of the water manually.

Insha Allah, as soon as our sheet metal shelters are erected by this weekend, our staff will be a lot more comfortable. We will not have to rely on the tents any more, and we will be prepared for the rains and snowfall as well.