As floods recede, disease breaks out in South

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As floods recede, disease breaks out in South
By THE NATION
2011-04-04

Illness - mostly from respiratory problems - has struck more than 20,000 residents in flooded provinces in the South. They are seeking or receiving treatment at government clinics, hospitals, or from mobile medical units, Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said yesterday.

Mobile medical units had made 667 visits to 18,378 patients seeking treatment for respiratory problems (60 per cent), foot rashes and diseases (23 per cent), and skin rashes (5 per cent).

Sixty-nine patients needed psychiatric counselling, with seven suffering deep depression due to relatives killed in the flooding and to property damage and losses.

Quoting the latest update yesterday by the Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand, Jurin said 45 people had been killed in the flooding in the South- 19 in the hardest-hit Nakhon Si Thammarat, 10 in Surat Thani, nine in Krabi, three in Phatthalung, two each in Trang and Chumphon.

A total of 30,000 sets of medicine for foot rashes will be distributed today in Surat Thani.

Around 250 government health clinics and stations in the South have been flooded. The heavily-flooded Tha Sala hospital in Nakhon Si Thammarat resumes its services tomorrow.

Helicopter airlifts took 15 patients in serious condition to new hospitals with better equipment.

Permanent secretary Dr Phaijit Warachit paid visits to hospitals in the province and Surat Thani, saying that those located in Nopphitham district were still heavily flooded and mobile medical units were substituting for them. He said there was no shortage of medication for those requiring constant dosages.

The director of a ministry ad-hoc flood relief centre, Dr Narong Sahamethaphat, said no new injuries had been reported following the fatal landslide in Krabi. All 15 survivors remain under hospital treatment with no infection reported.

Two medical teams, with psychiatrists attached, are providing services at Wat Tham Kob and Wat Thep Phanom school where shelters were set up housing for 150 survivors.