Arakan News Agency
Mr. Mohammed Hares, an eight-month-old baby, was on the brink of death and barely picked up his breath when he arrived at a field hospital in a refugee camp in Bangladesh because of pneumonia.
But doctors at the new Red Cross Field Hospital in Cox’s Bazaar, the largest clinic of its kind in the overcrowded camps along the border with Burma, have succeeded in rescuing him.
“If he would have arrived one hour later, he would not have had a chance to survive,” said Peter Meyer, the team leader in the 60-bed hospital, which is the size of two football fields.
The baby is one of more than 600,000 refugees who have poured into Bangladesh since late August to escape religious violence in neighboring Burma.
Many of them arrived with patients, suffering from gunshot wounds and landmine explosions, exacerbating pressure on already filled clinics operating in camps near the border.
Red Cross doctors at the new hospital treat more than 200 patients every day, while refugees from the impoverished Rohingya minority continue to cross into Bangladesh by land and sea, many of whom are in desperate need of treatment.
“Many of the patients we treated were weak and tired,” said pediatric nurse Healdor Svenonidoter from a clinic with an operating room, maternity ward and isolation unit. There are many cases of exhaustion and dryness due to long walks. ”
“There are patients who have not eaten in days.”
The overcrowded camps face the risk of serious diseases, with hundreds of thousands of refugees living in overcrowded shelters lacking adequate latrines.
Doctors fear that the spread of cholera-like water-borne diseases will have catastrophic consequences in these conditions, where thousands, especially children, are suffering from severe diarrhea.
Health services in Bangladesh save Rohingya refugees
