DOH to send mobile clinics to evacuation centers in CL

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Mobile clinics will be sent to flooded areas and evacuation centers in Central Luzon to treat people displaced by Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” for various ailments, according to Assistant Health Secretary Eric Tayag.

Tayag gave the assurance as the Department of Health monitored the situation in these areas so it could stop the outbreak of diseases.

He said many residents had complained of developing “alipunga” (athlete’s foot) due to prolonged exposure to floods and many fear that they will suffer from leptospirosis, an infection brought about by exposure to rat urine.

Some 700 people have consulted government doctors for various ailments in flood-stricken areas, DOH officials said here on Wednesday. They are among the remaining 43,172 evacuees, many of whom have complained of acute respiratory infection, diarrhea, skin diseases, fever, fever with rashes, hypertension and even snake bites.

“The sick ones consist of 2 percent of evacuees we consulted,” Benito Arca, health regional director, said shortly before President Aquino’s visit here on Wednesday.

As of Oct. 4, 126 evacuation centers remained open in four provinces hit by the back-to-back typhoons last week, he said.

Bulacan maintains 66 evacuation centers; Tarlac, 41; Pampanga, 18; and Zambales, three.

The evacuees have been staying in the centers for over a week now. Temporary shelters are actually schools, town and village multipurpose halls, barangay centers, chapels and churches that are not designed to accommodate large crowds.

So far, no evacuee has died in evacuation centers, said Arca. The DOH has distributed medicines, including chlorine tablets to ensure that water being used by evacuees is clean.

Floods persist in low-lying areas next to the Pampanga River and in Tarlac and Nueva Ecija, a report from the Office of the Civil Defense showed.

In Bulacan, Mira de la Cruz, 32, said many children in their village of San Pablo in Hagonoy town were suffering from diarrhea and stomachache but they had yet to receive a supply of medicines.

“We have no doctors here. We do not know where they are and we do not know if there are doctors available because we do not see them. Our village is still flooded and our hospital is still under water,” she said.

She said there was no potable water in their area and they had not been receiving supplies of bottled water.

De la Cruz said the evacuees were getting drinking water from a hose attached to a submerged faucet. They boil this water so their children have something to drink, she said.

She also complained of lack of toilets, saying most people discharge human and household wastes into the flooded areas.

Tayag told reporters that the DOH  would help bring food and water supplies, even portable toilets, to residents in flood-stricken areas. Tonette Orejas and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon