This is sort of practical help we really need. Thank you Cuba. :k:
Cuba doubles Pakistan quake medical team to 200
Around 100 Cuban doctors, nurses and paramedics arrived in Pakistan on Friday, ready to work right away to bring relief to survivors of the earthquake that savaged northern areas of the country two weeks ago. A first batch made the 26-hour flight from Havana a week ago and the latest influx brought the total number of Cuban medical staff on the ground in Pakistan close to 200. “We are happy to be here to help our Pakistani brothers and sisters and we are ready to work despite the very long flight,” Francisco Rivera, a nurse from Santa Clara, told Reuters at a military airbase in Rawalpindi, the garrison city next to Islamabad. Cuba’s First Deputy Minister Rodrigo Parrilla said the medical teams could stay for at least 90 days, and added that President Fidel Castro, one of the last communist leaders in the world, personally ordered the teams to be sent to Pakistan. The Cubans make up one of the largest foreign contingents of medical workers to have been rushed to Pakistan’s aid.
The United Nations’ top aid official vented his frustration this week over the international response to the most difficult relief operation the world has ever seen. Jan Egeland called on the NATO military alliance to stage a massive airlift to get survivors to safety. The death toll from the Oct. 8 quake that devastated parts of North West Frontier Province and Pakistan-held Kashmir is close to 50,000, while estimates of the injured are put at 74,000. Both figures are expected to rise, as many isolated villages in the Himalayan foothills have been cut off by landslides and have still to be assessed, let alone reached. There are fears of a second wave of death unless am estimated two million people are found shelter before winter begins to bite during the next few weeks. High mountains in the region have already received their first snowfall. The Cubans teams were being deployed at a military hospital in Islamabad, where many victims are sent after being evacuated by helicopter from the stricken areas, as well as to Balakot, the worst-hit town in North West Frontier Province, and to nearby Abbottabad. Many casualties’ injuries became infected because they were unable to get medical attention for days, often leaving doctors no choice but to amputate limbs to save patient’s lives.