Flood 2022 in Pakistan: Managing medical flood relief camps in a developing country

Abstract

Floods are the most common natural disasters in the world. Currently Pakistan is in an acute emergency situation due to the recent flood that occurred as a result of the monsoon rains in July-August 2022. Unfortunately, the country was already under an economic crisis and was just recovering from the COVID pandemic when this devastating calamity struck. Almost one-third of the country's land was affected, with millions of houses damaged and property lost. As the victims are displaced and local health units are flooded, their medical needs are being met through medical flood relief camps arranged by public and private sector welfare organizations. Due to a lack of disaster preparedness and policies, most of the healthcare workers are untrained to manage medical flood relief camps and are hence learning from experience rather than following any standardized policy guidelines. We did not find any guidelines for organization and management of a flood relief camp in previous literature. As natural disasters continue to cause mass destruction every few years, there is a need to devise policies and procedures for disaster preparedness and hazard reduction. This paper is thus an effort to provide the best possible delivery of acute health services in a developing country during and after a flood in the transit phase, while the government and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) help communities rebuild their health system.

Keywords: Emergency response; flood; medical camp; relief camp.