A helping hand to a flood affected village

By Dr. Kasun Kamaladasa

Our journey started early morning after a week of planning, gathering resources and organising our event remotely. Doctors from the MyDoctor panel volunteered stepping forward in this hour of need. Other volunteers and members were eager to deliver the ‘whatever help they could’. Since it’s been a week or so after water levels came back to normal, we were able to travel easily to the hilltop temple of Nugethota, Ethkandura but it was disturbing to see how all the dead crops and vegetation around the area had been covered in mud, more so when we learnt that the crops were the sole livelihood of the village people.

Upon arriving at the Hilltop temple where the villagers had taken refuge during the flood Welivitiye Sujeewa Thero had arranged a very warm welcome. Honestly we were all surprised to see that a village that had suffered so much would without any consideration of themselves try to treat us so well with all that they had left.

Our Medical Camp started soon after where we witnessed a village that has not only been ignored after the floods but even before them. While the closest tertiary care centre was Karapitiya Teaching hospital, there were a few divisional and base hospitals in and around. Practicality for the village elderly who had needs and assistance to get it was very slim at that given moment. Villagers suffered starting from infections and allergies to wheezing and heart complications, although they had been given basic medicine as aid before they had no doctors to assess their well being. So what started as a medical camp to assist flood victims with infection and need of renewing medicine for chronic diseases, ended up as a fully fledged medical camp for all their needs.

The village is yet to receive any help for cleaning ground water or cleaning the agricultural land which requires technical advice from relevant professionals.

Although our team was able to arrange gift packs containing stationary for children I doubt that those books alone would help them to restore what education they had missed due to the tragedy.

Once the Medical camp was over we were treated yet again with a grand lunch organised by the villagers at the temple. It’s incredible that a village with such hardships would still be ready to entertain us with such hospitality. The jackfruit mallum was the best I had tasted my whole life, yet the villagers insisted that they were really sorry they didn’t have time to make the food tastier.

After lunch with the guidance of Welivitiye Sujeewa Thero the chief monk of the temple we were able to visit the houses or whatever remained of the houses of several villagers. Living in tents provided from the Government these people were the most devastated. Looking at the emotionless or faces full of emotion (it was truly hard to tell) we all felt helpless. Again we had gathered all that we could for them, one could argue but with no house and nowhere to go whatever we provided would be of little meaning to them.

People still require a lot of aid and with the flood news fading away we tend to forget that they still need it. While MyDoctor team with help of the village temple and volunteers were able to relieve most of the medical needs of residents there are still many requirements to be fulfilled, cleaning of ground water, providing long term psychiatric relief, providing homes for those who are still displaced and help in cleaning agricultural land are just a few things that could help them get back on their feet.

We are happy that many organisations are still providing dry rations and school equipment for the children but would like to remind you that victims of the flood require medical and technical assistance when cleaning and restoring their environment. While MyDoctor will continue to help in whatever way we are able to in the future we urge all professionals and organisations that have the ability to do so to help out those in need not just in this village but in similar villagers all over the country.

(The writer is a member of the MyDoctor.lk Team.)