Malteser International sends three medical teams to Swat, north west Pakistan

Three Malteser International medical teams are providing health care for internally displaced people now returning to their home villages in Swat District, north-western Pakistan. Emotional and heat exhaustion, as well as intestinal diseases worsen their plight. “There is currently no adequate health care for them,” reports Dr. Jürgen Clemens, MI’s Desk Officer for Pakistan. “The local authorities advise that many health centres are damaged or completely destroyed and urgently need qualified medical staff.”

Each Malteser International medical team consists of a medical doctor, a midwife, a medical assistant and a social worker. The medical aid is primarily targeted at infants, children under five and pregnant or breast-feeding women. “Our teams reinforce medical services at local health centres on a regular basis. And on demand they offer additional consultations at easily accessible public places, such as schools,” Clemens says.

Malteser International, with financial support from the German Federal Foreign Office, has distributed 4,000 hygiene kits to internally displaced people in Mardan and Swat. And in June and July, two MI mobile teams provided medical care in Mardan, where two million people were forced to leave their homes due to fighting between the Taliban and government forces.

Malteser International will continue to provide basic health care for returnees in the North-West Frontier province of Pakistan at least until the end of the year.