With
by
• 3 doctors
• 1 pharmacist and 1 pharmacy helper. If there is no pharmacist available, and only a
dispenser or medical store keeper without formal training in pharmacy, then a fourth
doctor will be required to avoid medication errors.
• 1 nurse to take vital signs and weight and maintain IVs, dressings etc
• 1-2 non-medical volunteers who can be employed to document patient data, conduct
rapid surveys, language interpretation, help pharmacist etc.
• One of the 3 or 4 doctors, preferably with the most experience, should be appointed as
the Team Leader.
Orientation
The members of the team should meet before they are to leave for the affected areas for
orientation. Orientation for the new team should be the responsibility of and conducted by a
Team Leader who has already served in the camps and will comprise of the following:
• Introduction where all team members get to know each other. This has been shown to
greatly improve the efficiency and working of the team.
• Describe the medical conditions most frequently encountered and their treatment. The
most common conditions seen are as follows:
o Anemia, even in males
o Conjunctivitis, probably of viral etiology.
o Diarrhoea, mostly watery and non-bloody.
o Dehydration
o Epigastric pain in the older patients.
o Febrile illness which could be malaria, typhoid or dengue.
o Malaria is mostly vivax.
o Malnutrition, often severe
o Pregnancy. Expect about 3 pregnant patients for every 100 that you see.
o Skin conditions such as scabies, tinea corporis, tinea capitis, lichen planus,
eczema, lice infestation, folliculitis and furunculosis.
• Revise doses of medications that should be used with emphasis on pediatric dosing ( see
drug chart)
• Familiarize the team with the various brands of drugs and dosages that are on the
formulary. A sample of the drugs should be displayed at every orientation.
• Review policies that are being followed regarding dispensing of medications and duration
of treatment.
Duration of treatment in emergency situations should be the minimum effective for the
condition. Courses for greater than 1 week, in general, are not practical and can lead to
wastage of medications.
• Discuss policies regarding treating patients that are not from the flood affected areas that
may present to the clinic.
Essentially, no patient should be turned away.
• Discuss policies regarding dispensing of food items and water in addition to medications.
Food items should not be distributed since the focus of the Medical Clinic will not remain
the same. However, clean drinking water should be provided, atleast one 1.5 liter bottle
to each mother.
• Emphasize that the Medical Clinic should not function as a Drug Distribution Center.
Clinic should be a Treatment Center which means that you need to conduct a problem
oriented history and examination, make a diagnosis and then prescribe medications
together with counseling regarding hygiene and the correct way to take the medications
prescribed.
a. Stationary Clinics
One can utilize an existing building or use tents. The clinic will need:
• Area for patient consultation and examination. There should be a screen available that
can be used for examinations that need to be conducted privately.
• Pharmacy
• Sick Room for patients to receive IV hydration, wound dressing, minor surgery.
b. Mobile Clinics
To maximize efficiency of the mobile clinics, essential steps to follow are:
• Find an area, some distance from the center of the camp, where you can set down a few
chairs for the doctors and patients, and folding tables. If no shade available, keep a large
umbrella in your mobile van. You can examine patients inside a large ambulance as well.
Trying to create a level of comfort for the medical staff is important in maintaining
efficiency.
• Appoint one person for crowd control who can be firm and knows the language. Allow
one patient at a time.
• Nurse should triage the patient, and make sure that the sickest patients are seen before
the others.
• Nurse should document the name, age, sex, and some vital signs (if indicated) on a pre-
printed paper, which the patient then brings to the doctor. Record the temperature if
there is complain of fever. Take the blood pressure if dehydrated or patient gives a
history of hypertension. Obtaining vital signs for all patients is not practical. Weigh all
children who appear to be less than 35kg. Check blood sugar if patient gives a history of
diabetes. The nurse should counsel patients regarding hygiene at every opportunity.
Document immunization and nutritional status of children if you are interested to collect
this information.
• Doctor should examine the patient, and then send him/her to the pharmacy with the
prescription written on the paper that nurse has already filled with patient information.
• Doctors must write the prescription clearly, giving exact dosages e.g the mg/kg strength
of syrups, then the tsf required, in case of the pediatric patients, e.g amoxicillin-
clavulanate 156mg/5ml 1 tsf TDS for 5 days. The dosing needs to be explained to the
patient. Hygiene should be discussed, even if it is briefly.
• A volunteer who assists in receiving the prescription and finding the medications and
handing them to the pharmacist is essential, since the biggest crowds gather at the
pharmacy window, especially if more than 1 doctor is working at a time.
• Medications should be stored in order and divided into labeled areas such as analgesics,
antibiotics, GI drugs with ORS packets, cough and cold preparations, skin lotions and
creams, vitamins and supplements.
• Avoid syrups in your formulary since they are bulky and can get spoilt in the heat. Only
use syrups for very small children. Cough syrups are rarely of much use and their stock
should be limited.
Pregnancy Package
1 bottle of Folic Acid of 100 tablets, 1 tablet daily
60 ferrous tablets, 1 tablet BD
1 pack of 30 multivitamins, 1 tablet daily
• ORS should be prepared in clean water and provided to patients. If that is not possible,
give a bottle of clean water with sachet of ORS.
• If medication requires mixing with water, the pharmacist should mix the medication with
the exact amount of clean water before dispensing it.
• Make sure that we provide spoons or medication cups since it is pointless to direct a
patient to take 1 tsf three times a day if they do not have a teaspoon.
• For families who have more than 1 patient, pharmacy needs to keep paper bags for
separate prescriptions, so that the family does not mix up the medications.
• Prescriptions can be saved by the pharmacy for data collection. On the other hand, it
may be valuable for the patient to have a record of his treatment in case of follow-up visit
by ourselves or from another medical team. If the patient is given the prescription to
keep, patient data will need to be documented in a separate register.
4. Eye Infections
Mostly secondary to viral infection, hence no specific treatment is required.
If symptoms persist more than 3 days or purulent discharge then use topical antibiotic eye drops
such as:
a. Chloramphenicol eye drops
In mobile clinics, and even in the stationary clinics, there may not be an opportunity to follow up
the patient. Therefore, in practice, it is best to give antibiotic eye drops in the first patient
encounter, if there is conjunctivitis, although we suspect that it is probably viral in nature.
If symptoms persist for more than 2 wks, give oral erythromycin 12.5 mg/kg qid x 14 days for
trachoma.
5. Vector Control
a. Insect repellants may be used.
b. Permethrin impregnated bed nets, if practical
• Tinea corporis
a. Clotrimazole cream
• Tinea capitis
Topical treatment is ineffective.
a. Terbinafine tablets for 2-4 weeks. Impractical to treat in emergency conditions.
7. Typhoid
a. Cefixime PO for 10 days
b. Typhoid (if not responding to cefixime) then IV Ceftriaxone
8. Meningitis
a. Ceftriaxone IV
9. Malaria
a. Artemether/lumefantrine : for suspected P falciparum or P vivax
b. Chloroquine only if proven vivax species
10. Deworming
a. Albendazole single dose or mebendazole for 3 days.
11. Tuberculosis
Patients already on anti TB treatment should be referred to TB Centers. New suspected cases of
TB should be referred to tertiary care hospitals.
15. Laboratory
Rapid malaria detection tests are easy to perform and cost effective for diagnosis of
malaria and its species. A positive test will help rule out dengue and typhoid
fever and allow proper malaria surveillance. This is the only test we recommend for the mobile
clinics.
Chloroquine 150mg base Vivax malaria Adult: 4 tabs stat, 100 tabs (stock more
(250mg tab) then 2 tabs 6 hours if the data shows
later, then 2 tabs that most cases are
once a day for 2nd of vivax malaria)
and 3rd day.
Child: 10mg.kg once
daily for 2 days and
5mg/kg on 3rd day
Ceftriaxone Typhoid, meningitis 1gm twice a day. 10 vials
2gm twice a day if
meningitis
Child: 50-
75mg/kg/24hours in
1-2 doses.
100mg/kg/day in 2
doses if meningitis
Cefixime 400mg tabs Typhoid Adult: 400mg BD for 200 tabs
Cefixime syrup 10 days 20 bottles
200mg/5ml Child: 16mg/kg/day
in a single dose for
10 days
Cephradine 500mg tabs Skin and soft tissue Adult: 250mg every 6 250 tabs
Cephradine syrup bacterial infections hours or 500mg 25 bottles
250mg/5ml every 12 hours
Children 25-
50mg/kg/day in 2-3
doses
Give for 5-7 days
Ciprofloxacin Urinary tract infection Adult: 500mg BD for 300 of 500mg tabs
500mg tablets Bloody diarrhoea 5-7 days for UTI; 3 200 of 250mg tabs
250mg tablets Cholera days for diarrhoea 50 bottles of syrup
Syrup 125mg/5ml Child: 20-30mg/kg/24
hours divided into 2
doses e.g 10kg child
needs 1 tsf of
125mg/5ml BD for 3