A SCOTTISH doctor has told how she had to wash blood from her hands in the rain because of a chronic shortage of water at the hospital where she is based in Malawi following floods which have crippled the area's utilities.
Paediatrician Louisa Pollock said that health services in the city of Blantyre are facing a crisis after "unprecedented" rains overwhelmed the area's water infrastructure.
The 36-year-old treats child patients at Blantyre's Queen Elizabeth Hospital and says that the lack of water has led to several deaths among children because there is not enough to support transfusions or help those suffering from dehydration.
More than 170 people have died in flash floods caused by heavy rain over the past month, which swept many houses away and caused residents to flee to higher ground and government buildings such as schools.
Dr Pollock, from Stirling, said: "Blantyre is the biggest city and is surrounded by settlements that are basically slums. The buildings have tin roofs and mud walls and have basically been swept away.
"As well as drownings, we are treating people who have suffered injuries when their homes collapsed on them and there is also the risk of waterborne disease and increased malaria.
"It rained heavily for three and a half days without stopping and this has simply overwhelmed the water supply to the hospital, and it is now shut off. It's ironic, but because of the flood we have no water."
The doctor said that water supplies are provided by two tanker trucks and are carefully rationed among the 1,800 people currently at the hospital, as well as staff and visitors.
Handwashing is being done using surgical spirit and rainwater, and the sanitation network has broken down. Ms Pollock said that the lack of basic supplies had led to harrowing choices over who was given care.
She said: "I had three children who all needed a blood transfusion and because there was not enough water I basically had to choose between them.
"Using spirit to sterilise your hands works, but its not good for getting blood off and I was working on a patient who had been brought into accident and emergency where I had blood up to my elbows, and I had to go outside to rinse them off in the rain.
"Water is vital to so many of the hospitals services. We can't develop X-rays, or carry out lab tests or even sterilise surgical instruments."
Dr Pollock divides her time between working at the hospital and a project on a vaccine against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhoea among infants and young children and a major problem in developing countries.
She has launched a charity appeal to help buy the hospital either a water storage tank or a rainwater collection tank on its roof which could provide up back-up in the case of emergencies, and to support local families affected by the flood.
The charity's appeal can be accessed through the website www.justgiving.com/malawifloodappeal.
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