Local welfare organisation assisting hundreds disabled by quake

Large numbers of people disabled by the Bam disaster, mostly women and the elderly, have been seeking medical assistance from the government run Iranian Welfare Organisation (IWO) in Bam, three weeks after the devastating earthquake hit the city. The IWO has called for increased international assistance to deal with the huge new case load. Masouma Borji, 37, a resident of Bam injured in the disaster, had come to the IWO compound to ask to be refered to a rehabilitation camp in the provincial capital of Kerman, 175 km northwest of Bam. "My ears were badly injured in the earthquake, they were bleeding and after that I could hardly hear anything," she told IRIN. According to a recent UN report, some 20,000 people were injured when the earthquake hit the city on 26 December. Of the injured, 12,500 have been medically evacuated to other parts of Iran, and about 2,500 sent to Kerman. Hashem Hosseini, IWO representative in Bam, pointed out that disabled people in Bam would require care for months and years to come. "NGOs will stay here and provide their services to people only for a limited time, but rehabilitation and taking care of disabled people, which is our responsibility, is a long-term process," he ascertained. Hosseini reminded donors that all existing IWO facilities in the city had been destroyed in the quake and requested assistance in dealing with the thousands of newly disabled his organisation was faced with helping, noting an assessment of the number of disabled was underway. "After the earthquake our colleagues from 14 provinces of Iran have gathered here (in Bam) and our staff are going to all of the camps and villages of Bam to assess the situation," Mahmoud Tavackoli, an IWO official told IRIN, adding that lately, some 30 people had been applying for health care daily, mostly women. On Thursday, 20 people applied in the morning alone, seeking protection and help. "One of those who applied today needed a wheelchair, some of them need crutches," Tavackoli noted, adding that a 20-year-old women, who suffered serious injuries and couldn't walk as a result had just been provided with crutches. According to the IWO, more than 200 people disabled as a result of injuries sustained in the earthquake have been registered with IWO. Tavackoli said this number would rise dramatically as more assessment work is carried out. "The main problem is that most of the persons injured, they have gone to big cities like Tehran and Isfahan. And we have no estimate or statistics about them," the IWO official explained.