Donates beds to PIMS of over $100K.
ISLAMABAD, November 26 (UNHCR) – Actor Brad Pitt today donated 40 orthopaedic beds to an Islamabad hospital that has been struggling to cope with thousands of serious medical cases since the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake in northern Pakistan.
Pitt, visiting Pakistan with UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie, met the Executive Director of Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Dr. Syed Fazle Hadi, on Saturday evening to finalise details of the donation.
“In the first days of the earthquake, ambulances were arriving with casualties by the second. Helicopters were landing every hour, some on the hospital’s lawn,” said Dr. Hadi. “The relief response has been phenomenal, but we’ve also been humbled by people coming from all over the world to help in this human tragedy.”
PIMS now counts 654 amputees among its patients from the earthquake, which killed more than 73,000 people and left an equal number seriously injured.
“We told UNHCR a few days ago that we urgently needed 40 special orthopaedic beds for earthquake survivors with spinal injuries,” said Dr. Hadi. “They must be moved often to prevent bed and pressure sores that could prolong their stay by six months to a year. These special beds use electronics and hydraulics to move and turn them in every way.”
He told Pitt, “We didn’t expect to get a response so soon, and we’re extremely grateful for your prompt and generous offer.”
Pitt decided to fund the beds, worth over US$100,000, after seeing the devastation and desperate needs in the Allai valley, Balakot and Muzaffarabad.
“These people have suffered so much, but they have such tremendous spirit,” said Pitt. “I’m really moved by the relief effort, the communal spirit of it all. And I’m very happy to be able to help in some way.”
On the last day of their three-day visit to the quake zone, Pitt and Jolie helped to airlift and distribute food rations to villagers in Jabel Sharoon, a village 6,000 feet above sea level. They also offered their moral support to a US Mobile Army Surgery Hospital (MASH) in Muzaffarabad.
GENEVA, November 24 (UNHCR) – Angelina Jolie wrapped up an intensive two days of briefings on a variety of refugee-related issues at the UN refugee agency’s headquarters in Geneva late on Wednesday, before heading off to Pakistan to lend support to the agency’s emergency operations for the victims of the recent earthquake, and its 25-year-old Afghan refugee programme.
This will be the Oscar-winning actress’s third visit to Pakistan since becoming UNHCR’s Goodwill Ambassador in August 2001. While in Pakistan, she will meet with the the agency’s chief, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, who is in the middle of a six-day mission to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Angelina Jolie generally visits the agency’s headquarters at least once a year, to meet staff and discuss issues and situations that UNHCR believes she can help highlight.
During her latest Geneva visit, Jolie received extensive briefings from UNHCR experts on a variety of issues, including – but not limited to – her current mission to Pakistan.
“This time, I’ve been looking deeper into specific issues that affect refugees’ daily lives,” she said shortly before boarding her flight to Pakistan, adding that she had received briefings on issues such as gender-based violence, HIV/Aids, refugees and the environment, trafficking of women, micro-credit programmes, water, site-planning and emergency operations.
“These are complex subjects,” she said. “But if I’m to be an effective advocate for refugees, I need to know what I’m talking about. Providing a good, clean water supply is, of course, vital – but often easier said than done in places like Chad or Sudan. Set up a camp badly, and diseases will spread. Huge concentrations of refugees can have an awful impact on the environment. How do you minimize that? How does an agency like UNHCR balance its priorities, when there is so much to do, and so few resources to do it with?”
Jolie said that although her main focus was on field missions – she has made around 30 different trips as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador – her periodic visits to the agency’s headquarters were also important.