Telegraph & Argus 21st October 2005

Hospital staff fly out to help victims

Doctors and nurses from Bradford are providing desperately needed support for the victims of the South Asian earthquake.

Senior orthopaedic registrar Asad Syed, who works at Bradford Royal Infirmary, is already in Pakistan and he is due to be joined at the weekend by two other doctors and two A&E nurses.The surgeon flew out to Pakistan last week with colleagues Mr Waseem Saeed, a consultant plastic surgeon from St James’s Hospital in Leeds and Mr Amjad, an A&E consultant in Halifax. Bradford Teaching Hospit-als NHS Foundation Trust has also put in place a series of measures to help the injured and homeless.

Staff are coming forward from across the Trust seeking ways to play their part in the relief effort. As well as the doctors and nurses going to the earthquake-ravaged region, the Trust is sending vital medical supplies.

Dilshad Khan, director of equality and diversity at Bradford Teaching Hospitals, is part of the community disaster relief group being facilitated by the Asian Trade Link.

He said: “We have all been tremendously shocked by this tragedy. Many people working in the Trust and other living across Bradford have friends and relatives in the earthquake region.

“We’re all desperate to do anything we can to help.”

Medical supplies being sent out include bandages, dressings and local anaesthetics. A staff fundraising appeal has also been launched.

Mr Khan added: “Information from Bradford doctors in Pakistan is that the main problem they’re dealing with is crushed limbs, resulting in shock, infection, gangrene and finally death.

“It is heartbreaking to see television pictures of the devastation. We can barely imagine what it must be like, but we hope that the support the Trust is giving will help some of those people who are injured.

“It is heartening to see how people from diverse backgrounds and cultures are coming together to try and address this terrible tragedy.”