IRIN Humanitarian Web Special: Surviving disaster

The plight of Gode hospital in southeastern Ethiopia

Gode Regional Hospital, sited just a stone's throw away from the government and aid compounds, is a perfect example of the extreme underdevelopment in the region. Supervised for the past three years by a general practitioner, Dr Taj al-Din Ahmad, 27, it has no surgical ward or surgeon, and lacks even the most basic equipment and supplies. People arriving in critical need of surgery are therefore unlikely to survive.

"We try," Dr Taj al-Din told IRIN. Since arriving in Gode, he has attempted two emergency caesarean sections without anaesthetic or transfusion facilities, and with nothing but broad spectrum antibiotics for postoperative recovery. "We used ketamin intravenously as a sort of anaesthetic, but some things, like pain, we can't control," he said. Both the women and their babies died.

The hospital has 20 paediatric and 50 adult beds in five wards, as well as an outpatient unit and a pharmacy. But it is far from being "fully operational", Dr Taj al-Din noted. People seeking treatment sometimes come from as far away as 250 km. Although there is an option to send emergency cases to Jijiga, the capital of the Somali Regional State, it is 600 km away - and Ethiopian Airlines will only accept "noncritical" patients, he explained.

"During the drought, we had a lot more patients, but they had no food support from their relatives," said the doctor. Many people arrived in poor condition, having walked long distances while suffering from malnutrition-related diseases, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and malaria. For this reason, UNICEF and the government-run Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Board started last May to provide food rations, but by November the stocks had run out, apart from some milk powder.

The ensuing crisis was, however, mitigated by a positive development: the international NGO, World Vision, moved in with support for under-fives in the paediatric ward in the form of additional nurses, drugs, food and new cots. Some extra national staff were also sent in from Harer, eastern Ethiopia. "It's the first time international agencies came. Before that we had no support at all," said Dr Taj al-Din. He said that although his frequent pleas for help addressed to the state health department bureau were always acknowledged, "the response is never enough for the need". While he is philosophical about the state of the hospital, it also depresses him. "It is not just the health sector that suffers in this region. All sectors suffer," he said.