Rohingya Refugee Humanitarian Crisis. Emergency medical intervention in Camp 3 of Kutupalong Balukhali - Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
Doctors for Peace has proposed an emergency health intervention in Bangladesh aimed at Rohingya refugees living in the refugee camp No. 3 of the Kutupalong Balukhali Expansion Site, Cox’s Bazar .
The intervention offered a medical service of social dentistry carried out through a mobile clinic, equipped with portable equipment capable of reaching the most vulnerable sections of the population, with particular attention to minors and their mothers.
To support these actions, awareness-raising and general training activities were carried out on prevention-oriented hygiene and health issues related to the health of the oral cavity and teeth.
Project Map
The context
The Rohingya are a stateless ethnic minority, of Muslim religion, who originally lived in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, to which the government has always denied citizenship. The community has suffered decades of severe discrimination and cruel and systematic violence that has caused several waves of emigration to neighboring Bangladesh. According to official UNHCR data, since 25 August 2017, following a dramatic resurgence of violence in a repressive process comparable to ethnic cleansing, 706,364 refugees have arrived in Bangladesh, adding to the existing population, bringing the total to 914,998 refugees.
In the Cox’s Bazar area there are currently 32 refugee camps, grouped into larger agglomerations. The main one is the Kutupalong Balukhali Expansion Site, which alone gathers 631,085 refugees. Far from being a temporary accommodation, it is instead a place of residence, where the Rohingya have access to primary services and begin again, as a community, to rebuild the social fabric that has been barbarously damaged for decades. In any case, refugees live in constant need of humanitarian aid in terms of security, housing facilities, food, drinking water and social and health care.
In recent years, some of the basic health needs of refugees have been gradually met, thanks to the joint effort of NGOs, international agencies and local government. This, however, has not happened in the dental field and, to date, the offer of dental care and oral hygiene education is completely absent in the fields.
Activities
In this context, the emergency health intervention of Doctors for Peace was inserted, with the aim of guaranteeing, through the conduct of a mobile dental clinic, access to dental care to refugees in camp 3 of Kutupalong Balukhali Expansion Site.
The project involved the construction of medical and dental fields.
The total absence of accessible dental services within the fields highlights the need for a dedicated mobile clinic that provides, on a regular basis, free dental care. Each medical and dental field has been carried out by an expert dentist (health professional), an assistant (health assistant) and a facilitator (social mobilizer). The aim was to offer first-class dental care by carrying out screenings, providing dental care and oral hygiene education sessions.
The direct beneficiaries of the intervention were 1,200 individuals, mostly minors and mothers, belonging to the Rohingya refugee community, of the refugee camp no. 3 of Kutupalong, Cox’s Bazar. In addition, 8,000 people have indirectly benefited from the project thanks to peer to peer education on oral hygiene and health issues.
