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USAID Workers Help Save Lives in Pakistani Camps
FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
By Zack Taylor
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A USAID-supported program conducted
medical consultations for more than
50,000 people like this mother and baby
who were among the 1.7 million displaced
by fighting between the Pakistani military
and the Taliban in the Swat and Buner
districts in May 2009.
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MARDAN, Pakistan—In early
May 2009, a team of health specialists
in the Swat Valley
received a curt message from the
Taliban: Get out or expect to be
beheaded. Meanwhile, the
Pakistani military was advancing
fast in an attempt to drive extremist
militants from the area.
The USAID-supported specialists
had been working
to upgrade district health systems,
and increase maternal and
child health awareness. But they
soon joined the exodus of more
than 2 million people from the
valley.
“We were IDPs [internally
displaced persons] too,” said
Amhed Nasir, a project officer.
“We had to leave our office with
little notice. When we arrived in
Mardan, our sister project was
already operating in the area, so
we just went to work too.”
As part of the Pakistan Initiative
for Mothers and Newborns
(PAIMAN), staff from 11 local
NGOs were assigned to Mardan
and Charsadda, south of Swat
and Buner districts where the
fighting was taking place.
Within five days, the displaced
health workers joined
forces with three partners
already operating to provide
relief. The first priority: find a
suitable place to care for the
expectant mothers among the
300,000 camp dwellers.
“Women in labor
were lying on the bare
ground at the camp in
Charsadda,” said Dr.
Shuiab Khan, a
PAIMAN program
director. “We immediately
brought in 100
mattresses and bedding
for the women waiting
to give birth.”
Project staff coordinated
with the Pakistan
government and other
local and international
aid agencies to supply
food, cooking pots and
utensils, latrines, and
clean water.
Four emergency
birthing centers were
set up near the three
camps in Mardan and
one in Charsadda,
including a sugar mill closed for
30 years, an abandoned health
center, and a vacant house.
PAIMAN staff cleaned up the
buildings and installed air conditioners
to ward off the oppressive
heat. Soon, trained birth attendants
staffed the facilities, expectant
mothers moved inside, and health
specialists began seeing up to 400
patients per day on a 24-hour,
seven-days-a-week basis.
The NGOs also set up two
mobile medical camps that
covered 208 sites over 10 weeks
and assisted nearly 52,000 IDPs
staying with host families. The
mobile camps spent a day at each
location helping with births, preand
post-natal care, vaccinations,
and counseling on family
planning.
In the case of complications
during delivery, each NGO had
an ambulance to rush expectant
mothers or babies to the closest
hospital, about a half-hour away from most of the camps.
New mothers received kits containing clean blankets to swaddle the newborns, diapers, and fresh clothes for the mothers.
Outside one birthing center in Mardan, PAIMAN staff noticed a young couple weeping over a 3-month-old boy, certain he had died from the heat. They rushed baby and parents to the hospital, where doctors were able to resuscitate and rehydrate the boy. Within 20 minutes, the boy, named Haris, opened his eyes and started to cry. Within two hours, they were on their way back to the camp. The next day, the parents returned to the center the best gift for the staff they could muster: two hen’s eggs.
“No words can express the joy I felt when my son opened his eyes,” said Abdur Rauf, the boy’s father.
By mid-August, Swat and Buner were again firmly under control of the Pakistan government, and the displaced began to return to their homes. Project staff members returned to their workaday roles.
“I think we made a real difference in the lives of a great number of people under difficult circumstances,” Dr. Khan said. “The established presence of USAID in the districts was an important contributor to our success, but more important, when we came to them with our assessment of the situation, they immediately approved our plan. That saved a lot of lives.”
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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by mail to Editor, FrontLines, USAID,
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by FAX to 202-216-3035; or by e-mail to frontlines@usaid.gov
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