Nairobi (ICRC) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has provided Nakuru Provincial Hospital with enough medical supplies
to treat some 100 weapon-wounded patients.
An ICRC truck carrying the 1.4-tonne consignment left the organization's logistics base in Nairobi early Friday afternoon.
The
supplies include pharmaceuticals, dressings, sutures, anaesthetics, and other surgical consumables.
They were dispatched at the request of officials at the hospital and in coordination with
the Ministry of Health.
"These items will ensure that the hospital can cope with the number of wound victims from the recent flare-up of violence in the Nakuru-Molo area," said Pascal
Cuttat, head of the ICRC regional delegation in Nairobi.
"We're in regular contact with the hospital and the ICRC is prepared to offer further aid if requested." In Eldoret, an ICRC team
composed of a surgeon, an anaesthetist and two nurses has just completed a three-week assignment at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, where they have been operating on particularly difficult
cases, including burns and wounds with complications.
The first ICRC surgeon arrived in Eldoret on 1 January to carry out operations and help hospital authorities set up triage and other
systems to manage the large influx of wounded at that time.
The ICRC also provided the Moi Hospital with material to treat 100 victims.
Working through the Kenya Red Cross
Society, the ICRC has also furnished food and essential household items to people affected by the violence.
Staff from the ICRC and the Kenya Red Cross are striving together to ensure
adequate water supplies and sanitation for people forced to flee their homes.
The ICRC is also assisting the Kenya Red Cross in its work to reunite families who have been separated by the
events.
"The ICRC is concerned about the degree of suffering of Kenyans from all walks of life," adds Cuttat.
"We urge everyone connected with the events and the ongoing tension
to ensure the respect of human life and dignity at all times." For further information, please contact:
Marçal Izard, ICRC Geneva, tel.
+41 22 730 2458 or +41 79 217
32 24
Bernard Barrett, ICRC Nairobi, tel.
A military officer talks to armed demonstrators following ethnic clashes in Nakuru, January 25, 2008. At least seven people have been killed in ethnic clashes around Nakuru in Kenya's volatile Rift ...
