Health unions to promote sanitary habits among tsunami refugees

By Damitha Hemachandra
January 06, 2005

Poor sanitary habits of the displaced people could trigger several diseases if measures were not taken immediately, warned health unions yesterday calling for better awareness and facilities.
The Health Services Trade Union Alliance (HSTUA) said most people in the Tsunami struck area had returned to the use of well water without properly treating the water with chlorine.
"Although there had been a voluntary service of well clearing they have not provided them with necessary disinfectants and had not informed the need of using chlorine before drinking the water," they said.
They called for the relief agencies and the government to provide more water purifying systems to the refugee camps, where there are no facilities to boil or chemically treat water.
DART, a military relief group from Canada meanwhile is to convey four massive water purification units to the hospitals situated in the Eastern coast, each capable of producing 50,000 litres of clean water per day.
HSTUA also called for the Health Ministry to provide better facilities to Kalmunai and Kiniya hospitals, which had been destroyed by the tsunami.
Spokesman for HSTUA, Saman Rathnapriya pointed out that the new building, which has been taken to house the patients lacks basic facilities to deal with the injured and other victims of tsunami and requested the immediate provision of temporary hospital facilities to serve the increasing number of patients.
He pointed that the Kalmunai Hospital too is crowded with nearly 100 hospital staff, who too have lost their houses due to the tidal wave.
The HSTUA would hold five health camps in Balapitiya and Ambalangoda to promote good sanitation habits and distribute rubber slippers, gloves, sanitary pads, masks and chlorine packets to clear water.
The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) yesterday also complained of donations of pharmaceuticals, which had expired its term of use and called for medical volunteers and doctors who are working to pay a special attention to the expiry dates.
Meanwhile skin diseases, respiratory infections and diarrhoea cases are being reported from the Tsunami struck areas with threats of outbreaks of dengue increasing with the torrential rains in the east.