HOPE Invited To Karachi Commissioner’s Meeting For Evaluation of The Heat Wave Casualties and Measures Being Taken To Manage Monsoon Hazards.

HOPE, an education related NGO in Pakistan, http://www.hope-ngo.com/Education/NorthernPakistanHomeSchools.aspx  attended the meeting along with several other organizations including the heads of  Civil Hospital Karachi, Jinnah Hospital, Abbasi  Shaheed Hospital and several other  Hospitals based in Karachi and different  cities of interior Sindh.

The discussion first revolved around how the temperatures were extremely high  from  the very first day of Ramadan and how its intensity persisted for the first ten days without any let up. And how the situation became worse with the complete loss of power in many parts of the city, compounded further by an acute shortage of water  in almost all areas of the city. All the hospitals’ representatives advised how they coped with this calamity-like situation, although they did admit that they were ill-prepared for the situation. 

They complained that they did not hear a word of appreciation for the thousands of lives they saved but were continuously blamed for the lives that were lost – especially by the print and visual media. 

The other organizations including  HOPE, an education and Health related NGO in Pakistan, http://www.hope-ngo.com/Health/MaternalChildCenter.aspx advised the participants how they capably managed the situation as best as possible in providing relief to the people in areas most severely affected by the intense heat wave in  providing cool drinking water, first aid and primary care and basic medicines  wherever needed, transportation of  the severely affected patients to the hospitals etc.

 Then the topic moved to the impending and somewhat dreaded season of  the rains, the monsoons. Karachi, a city of over 20,000,000 with very tightly-knit housing communities mostly lacking basic amenities like drainage, sewage systems, a proper system of garbage collections is completely inundated when the rains arrive. The drains already clogged with garbage overflow with water and there is stagnant filthy water even days after the rains – which in turn triggers many diseases thus unleashing a new cycle of  health related problems – which gets controlled only when the standing dirty waters dry up by the sun’s heat which should have in the first place been drained out. This time, though, the commissioner was determined that such a situation would not be permitted to arise and gave directions for the city’s cleanup with immediate affect and also  for all personnel including the NGOs to be on standby and step in immediately if a situation required any assistance from any quarter.

As always particular attention was given by Dr Mubina Agboatwalla, child specialist in Karachi, http://www.drmubinaagboatwalla.com/child-specialist-karachi/   who set up teams and instructed them to be ready and fully prepared and come into immediate action as and when needed.