Somali - Wards packed with the dying, screaming and emaciated. Infants lying on sweat-soaked sheets, their mothers pleading with doctors for help.
These are the scenes which greeted a team of South African medical specialists who this week flew on a mercy mission to a Somalia ravaged by war and famine.
The team of 29 doctors, nurses, surgeons and pharmacists, under the banner of Gift of the Givers, will spend the next week staffing Banadir Hospital.
Situated in the heart of the war-torn capital, Mogadishu, the hospital was once east Africa’s leading tertiary hospital.
Now, after 23 years of fighting between warlords, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, government troops and AU forces, the hospital has been left with nothing.
Years of looting, theft and warfare have left the hospital with three doctors, no nurses, antiquated medical equipment and virtually no supply of medication.
Yet, day in and day out, with little if any anaesthetic, it performs at least 13 general surgery operations and four orthopaedic operations, with staff receiving more than 100 new patients.
Hospital deputy director Abdulqadir Abdur-Rahman Adam, this week came close to tears after the South Africans arrived with over 21 tons of medical supplies.
“Thank you. Thank you again and again. Thank for what you have done and thank you for what you are doing.
“You are a godsend.
“Without you none of these people will survive. None of these children will live to see tomorrow if it is not for you,” he said.
For the team, the task facing them is mammoth.
“It is like nothing I have ever seen on earth. It is worse than a horror movie. It is something where you have to say, ‘thank God this does not happen back home; thank you God my family does not have to face starvation like this’,” said Pietermaritzburg orthopaedic surgeon Livan Turino.
Describing the conditions, Turino said the hospital had nothing.
“It has less than nothing. It is an absolute miracle what these doctors have been doing. It is incredible to see how they have managed with nothing, especially with the massive volume of patients, which is continually increasing.
“It is only through sheer willpower that they have managed to provide some sort of medical service.”
Turino said the hardest part of the mission was the children.
“Seeing the children today made one’s heart break.
“Knowing that for so long so many have died because there has been nothing that anyone could do for them.
“We are seeing diseases which should have been eradicated a long time ago. Malnutrition, chronic bone deformities and highly infectious diseases are just some of the cases that we are seeing.
“Then we are coming across patients who have war injuries which have been left unattended, for years,” he said, as he examined an x-ray of a man shot in the spine two years ago.
Dr Shabir Hayat said if the patients in the hospital did not receive urgent medical attention then many, especially the children, would die.
“What is happening here is beyond words.
“At the moment it is like pouring water into a bucket with a hole, but soon, through our intervention, we will make a big difference, especially over the short term,” Hayat said.
Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said while it may sound callous, an earthquake was better than what was happening in Somalia.
“In an earthquake everything is over in 30 seconds and maybe 300 000 people are dead, but in a famine parents watch their children dying little by little bit, day by day, month by month, knowing that there is little if anything that can be done to save them.
“Compounding this are the appalling conditions, such as these, where people come to seek medical help.
“This hospital shows that the crisis is far worse than what is being seen in the camps. Emaciated parents holding dying children are everywhere, knowing that they will be lucky if their children receive any help at all.
“What is making this mission different, though - and this is where we will make the difference - is the willingness of the people to learn and let us help them.
“By them being so appreciative of us being here, we can and will make a difference.” - Pretoria News