Health Care Update on Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta

While at least a million severely affected people in the Irrawaddy Delta are trying to scrape together proper shelter and supplies of food, health care workers in the Irrawaddy Division are bracing for potentially deadly disease outbreaks. Many survivors of Cyclone Nargis are, no doubt, still seeking care for injuries suffered during the storm as well as sicknesses brought on by days of exposure to the torrential rains of the monsoon season. Health care services in the Irrawaddy Delta have been pieced together from the remnants of staff from local township hospitals along with Ministry of Health staff, staff from Yangon General Hospital and other hospitals, local healthcare workers from NGOs and international teams of doctors from around the region. While medical teams from NGOs and regional countries continue to stream into the country, the entire health care system of Yangon and the Irrawaddy is no doubt undergoing serious strain.

Take for example Yangon General Hospital’s staff of roughly 278 doctors and over 400 nurses (as per figures from the Yangon City website). The hospital’s cardiac and cancer wards were reportedly destroyed in the storm, with roofs covering other sections of the hospital being damaged. In addition to handling the afflicted among Yangon‘s population of 5 to 6 million people,

U.N. Secretary General on His Way to Myanmar

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced in a Tuesday morning press conference (New York time) that he was heading to Yangon to help reinforce cyclone relief efforts there. The Secretary General will arrive on Thursday to meet with local and international relief officials, tour the Irrawaddy delta, and attend an international donor conference to be held on Sunday. U.N. agencies such as the World Health Organization, the U.N. Children’s Fund (Unicef), and World Food Programme (WFP) have been active in the relief effort.

“I want to see the conditions under which relief teams are working and I intend to do all I can to reinforce their efforts in coordination with the Myanmar’s authorities and international aid agencies,” Mr. Ban said in remarks to reporters at U.N. Headquarters.

The Secretary General also reported that

Who, What and Where? – The Unanswered Questions Haunting Relief Groups

Officials from a variety of U.N. agencies announced in Bangkok today that they still don’t have the basic data to provide an adequate assessment of the needs of those affected by the cyclone. Hampered by limited access to the disaster zone, relief agencies are still dealing with wide ranging estimates of the total numbers of people severely affected by the disaster. Recently the U.N. upped it’s estimates of severely affected from 1.2 to 1.7 million to now 1.5 to 2.5 million. No doubt this is partially due to the length of time that many survivors have gone without food, but it also reflects a still rather limited understanding of the full crisis.

Without clear numbers of the needy and information about their whereabouts they are unable to come up with a clear picture as to what survivors truly need, in terms of amounts of food, medicine, and shelter materials. In disaster relief, agencies would typically take a census of affected areas to find out important details, such as the numbers of those at greatest risk and need –