‘’I was hoping our problems would be solved as fast as it took them to put ink to the paper, but we are still waiting desperately’’, Teame Aregay Ayder Pharmacy Head
Before the war broke out, he says, the hospital pharmacy was dreaming of taking it into High Level services that maintains its international standard .With 12 sub units in it, it was mainly serving on distribution of medicines, medical supplies with appropriate information for clients.
‘’Now that self-reliance turned to begging barehanded as Medical stores are empty and Ayder has only remained with staff Members’’, says Teame.
People are coming hoping that they will get but all they give them is advice.
Number of patients and death has increased as displaced people are also being served here and the Head adds seeing corpses off is a daily routine in Ayder.
He says he was, at first, delighted to learn the peace agreement as a health professional and as a Tigrian suffering from the catastrophe but still remains desperate.
But he hopes the internationally known right to access the medicines would be facilitated as some medicines have arrived.
So far ICRC, WHO, World Vision and other individuals have helped the entry of medical supplies into the unit .But he says it is incomparable to the number of patients mentioning the arrival of Insulin as compared to the more than 9000 diabetics in which more than 2500 are children and around 7000 aged diabetics. Underling the changes he says what arrives only lasts a week, if not two.
‘’On some issues we are talking about disproportion but we have also patients with mental illness who have not received anything yet .This seems forgotten it is internationally known problem, though. But, I couldn’t know the reason as there is no means of communication. ’Said the head.
He also highlighted that Children are suffering as they are missing medicines they have to take in the early months.
He added they don’t have direct communication with Ethiopian pharmaceutical Supply Agency and ministry of health.
Expressing the difficulty of living he says he chooses not to be here and questions if being a health professional these days is a curse, striving hard to serve the needy though.
‘’You know we wear white gown while working as health workers, but we are black inside ‘’stating his frustration that the presence of health professional with no equipment and medical supplies equates absence of health professional.
He says four colleagues in the unit are missed since they left Tigrai to Adiss Ababa that were sent for work.
Reiterating his happiness he urges the ministry of health to contact them directly as they are ‘’its workers and if things have to go back to normalcy’’.
He stresses, the ministry of health has no single reason to deny the attention to Ayder that gives it to a Hospital somewhere else in the country and calls the ministry must reach for them.
In his message to the international community he says it must strengthen what has been started. He also calls for those who deny the reports to come and witness on the ground instead of just hearing.