Medical Teams Respond to Bangladesh’s Flood-Stricken Villages

The recent flood waters in Bangladesh that submerged more than half the country are now receding from homes and roads. However, water still stands on fields and the humanitarian situation remains serious for the one million-plus people who have been affected. For the poorest of the poor, the need for shelter, fresh drinking water, and food exceeds available resources.

The following is a story of Bina, a nineteen-year-old mother struggling to survive, and CARE’s response following major flooding in Bangladesh July and August of 2007.

A nineteen-year-old mother, Bina, stands in line with her eight-month-old daughter, waiting for her turn to talk with a member of one of the CARE medical teams that have been working in some of the poorest flood-stricken areas of Bangladesh. Bina’s daughter, Nina, has been suffering from diarrhea for the last week. 

The news that the CARE medical team would come to the village was spread the day before by the local Village Development Committee (VDC) and CARE’s local partner, Bangladesh’s National Development Program. Volunteers went from village to village with hand held loudspeakers and personal visits to announce the team’s arrival.

Bina, whose village is roughly a mile away, explains that she would never have been able to see a doctor if the CARE team had not arrived. Regular medical facilities are simply too far away. There are no roads in this area and everyone travels by boat. The CARE medical team was her only chance to get treatment for an illness that can easily prove fatal for an infant.

“If these children get proper treatment, they can be well in about a month,” says Dr. Barnabus Hasdak, who is normally stationed at Dhaka’s community hospital, but volunteered to work with CARE. “If the children get dysentery, they can die in a few days if they don’t get treatment,” Dr. Hasdak explains. Bangladesh health authorities have been reporting 900 to 1,000 new cases of acute diarrhea a day, and more than 60,000 cases since the beginning of the flood. An emergency wing has been set up in Dhaka’s International Center for Diarrheal Diseases, but most of these villages are too remote and too poor to send patients to the capital. Besides diarrhea, there are rising numbers of acute respiratory infections and malnutrition. Sometimes, it is simply a question of knowing the right things to eat. While Dr. Hasdak consulted with patients, a CARE health worker delivered messages on nutrition and birth preparedness to several dozen pregnant women. Some already had several babies previously, but had never before been in contact with a doctor, or had contact with healthcare professionals.