Via MSF Canada, a November 26 report: Reaching remote areas still in need of aid.
Despite increasing amounts of humanitarian aid reaching typhoon-hit areas of the Philippines, MSF teams are still finding villages and towns that have not yet received any aid.
MSF’s teams are working in hospitals, running mobile clinics, providing mental healthcare, distributing essential relief items and clean drinking water.
In Guiuan, Samar Island, MSF set up a 40-bed tent hospital, distributed 1,200 tents and is providing potable water to over 20,000 people. In the city of Tacloban, Leyte Island, MSF set up a 45-bed inflatable hospital.
Remote areas still in need of aid
“While aid has been focused on the severely hit city of Tacloban, many remote areas still remain unassisted,” said Anne Taylor, MSF’s regional emergency coordinator.
“Even in places just a few kilometres away, medical services have been extremely limited. In Tolosa for example, there was only one medical post for a population of 55,000.”
In the small town of Liberty, in eastern-central Leyte, an outreach team found that people had been cut off from medical services since the typhoon struck. The team treated 62 patients in one day.
Other MSF teams have had similar experiences in villages around Guiuan, and on several of the islands east of Panay.
Mobile clinics by road and sea
MSF is working to address the gaps in healthcare and aid by running mobile clinics in and around the towns of Ormoc, Santa Fe, Julita, and Tabontabon on Leyte Island; in Estancia, Carles and San Dionisio on Panay Island; and around Guiuan.
Medical teams are also running mobile clinics by boat to the small islands east of Panay and south of Guiuan. Assessment teams continue to travel to remote areas of Samar Island, Panay Island and Leyte Island to provide medical aid in villages that have not yet received assistance.
The most common conditions among MSF’s patients are respiratory tract infections, infected wounds and chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
