Health centres to benefit thousands

Two-and-a-half years after the devastating earthquake of October 2005 that killed at least 73,000 people, some survivors still lack access to basic healthcare.

Most of the limited services in the quake-hit areas of northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir were destroyed and it has not been possible to adequately replace them.

Addressing this urgent need, the Saudi Public Assistance for Pakistan Earthquake Victims (SPAPEV), set up soon after the disaster, has contributed US$1.8 million to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Pakistan to construct five basic health units (BHUs) in quake-hit areas.

Two of these are under construction – one is in Abbotabad in the North West Frontier Province and another in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Work on the three other centres is to begin soon. The BHUs will provide primary care to about 60,000 people, including children and women.

"About 75 percent of health facilities were destroyed or significantly damaged in this remote and inaccessible region. Even before the earthquake, the health system was very weak," Martin Mogwanja, the UNICEF country representative for Pakistan, told IRIN in Islamabad.

Apart from the death toll of 73,000, the October 2005 quake left 3.3 million people homeless, 42,000 children orphaned and 23,000 children disabled.

Since 2005, UNICEF, with the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, set up in Pakistan after the disaster, and its partners, have provided health and nutrition services to an estimated 2.3 million people in six districts – about two-thirds of the affected population – by establishing high-quality health centres.

UNICEF has also provided safe drinking water and sanitation facilities to nearly a million people. Efforts to promote and facilitate education served about 464,000 children, of whom over 36,000 are now attending primary school for the first time.

kh/at/mw