Mountain medics of Kashmir
Trevor
Grant describes the health care outreach program being conducted by
ADF medics in the earthquake zone of Kashmir
It's more than 1980 metres, or 6500 feet, up.
It's cold and will soon be covered in snow. Welcome to Qaziabad in the
mountains of Kashmir.
Qaziabad
is the first location visited by an Australian Defence Force (ADF) medical
team flying in by helicopter to set up day health care clinics in isolated
areas of the Neelum valley, on the Pakistan side of the Kashmir Line
Of Control.
The team is based at our medical centre, Camp Bradman, in the nearby
village of Dhanni. We call this health care extension program under
Operation Pakistan Assist, 'Operation Longreach'.
When
we arrive in Qaziabad, the villagers welcome us with beaming smiles
and many handshakes. The local children greet us warmly. The spirit
of the people here is high despite the earthquake devastation.
Earthquakes
hit this remote area of the mountains hard. Houses were destroyed and
lives shattered. Water supplies to the village were cut, leaving the
nearest drinkable water a small spring more than a two-hour walk away.
The local people make do with what little they have been able to salvage
from the ruins of their homes. They live in tents or homemade shelters
of canvas and corrugated iron along ridgelines and on the mountainside.
So
life in this little village goes on. Some local children attend the
roofless village school. Others study amid the ruins of the local mosque.
Local shops trade with anybody who needs their wares. When not impeded
by snow or further landslides, public transport at last can get through
on rough roads.
The
vital service lacking in Qaziabad is health care. The nearest is the
Australian medical facility at Camp Bradman in Dhanni, two and a half
hours walk down the mountain.
This
is why Operation Longreach is so important: it brings medical attention
to villages so remote, in such rugged terrain, that patients may be
at unacceptable risk trying to reach nearby Dhanni on foot. On the first
Longreach trip to Qaziabad, four ADF medical personnel treat 42 patients
in four hours.
They deal with issues ranging from simple inoculations to pneumonia
and infectious skin diseases. By Australian standards, conditions for
providing health care are primitive, but the ADF medical team understand
the necessity of their work.
They are inspired by and are highly motivated to help the local people,
who have shown such strengths in adversity.
Flight Lieutenant Trevor Grant is a Royal Australian
Air Force public affairs officer with the 1st Joint Public Affairs Unit.
He has been attached since December 2005 to the Australian Joint Task
Force for Operation Pakistan Assist. Trevor Grant shot many of the photographs
of humanitarian relief operations in Pakistan and Kashmir published on
this website.
