Posted on 27 February, 2013

Photo: Flooded streets in Gaza Province. Mozambique 2013 © MSF 

MSF Expands emergency response for Mozambique flood victims

Recent floods devastated the city of Chokwe in Mozambique’s Gaza Province, putting the main hospitals and health structures out of action and leaving people in urgent need of medical care. In response, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is bringing in extra staff and medical supplies and working to get the health facilities up and running again.

The wards of the city’s 120-bed referral hospital in Chokwe—225 kilometers [about 140 miles] north of Mozambique’s capital, Maputo—were deluged with mud and floodwater. MSF teams are working to reopen a section of the hospital, and hope that 10 to 15 beds will be ready for patients soon.

“More and more people are coming back to a devastated city where public services have not yet been reestablished,” says MSF Country Director Reveka Papadopoulou. “Our teams have witnessed an increased number of severely ill patients who need hospital care.”

MSF staff has provided more than 10,000 medical consultations since arriving in Chokwe on January 30, 2013. “We are seeing an average of 700 patients per day, and sometimes more,” says MSF Nurse Amelia Macuacua. “We are referring 15 to 20 severely ill patients to other hospitals in the district [that] are functioning but are already overloaded.”