Homemade signs and help

This medical tent, operated by Mercy Corps' emergency team here in Sindh Province, is serving about 150 flood-displaced women every day. Photo: Pete O'Farrell/Mercy Corps

For the most part, it looked like all the other tents in this growing camp for internally-displaced persons (IDPs), currently populated by more than 3,000 people who've been driven from their homes by Pakistan's floods. The non-descript white canvas triangular tent was no more than eight feet by 10 feet, with some basic red carpets on the bottom keeping the dust at bay. The only thing that separated this tent from the hundreds of others was a small homemade sign saying, “Mobile Medical Unit.”

In the hundred-plus degree heat, a Mercy Corps team has set up mobile medical tents for women inside this burgeoning camp in Sindh Province. Our team works for days before moving to another camp to provide medical aid. The doctors — working with donated medicines — treat all different types of illnesses such as rashes, water-borne diseases, eye infections from the dust and symptoms of dehydration from the intense heat. Twenty-five women sat in the waiting room, which was no more than a tent with some basic floor mats to keep people out of the intense sunlight. Before the day is over, more than 150 women will be treated.

On the other side of the tent, another Mercy Corps colleague was leading 50 women in a two-hour hygiene lesson. These classes teach women basic hygiene for their new living conditions where the dust, heat, shared water sources, latrines and new surroundings present challenges very different from their home villages. At the conclusion of the course, the women received a hygiene kit with soap, bandages, cloths and other essentials.

The floods in Pakistan are the worst in well over 100 years. The UN says that more than 20 million people have been affected and at least four million are homeless and displaced. Thousands of camps just like these have been set up in cities and the countryside across Pakistan.

Mercy Corps has worked in Pakistan since 1986 and responded to previous disasters such as the 2005 earthquake and 2009 Swat Valley displacement crisis. The experience gained from those previous crises has allowed our teams to efficiently and effectively respond to the immediate needs of the people.

I arrived in Pakistan just two days ago from Portland to lend any and all assistance to our teams on the ground, and I am in awe of all they have done in such a short time.