Friday, April 1, 2011

Looting-related cases cited at Modilon hospital

By JAYNE SAFIHAO, The National
THE Modilon General Hospital has received 30 patients with knife wounds  and about 10 with stomach pains, diarrhoea and vomiting due to food poisoning as a result of consuming products looted from the burnt supermarket last Saturday, hospital staff said.
The symptoms were explained as minor but patients were closely monitored and later discharged .
The cases stemmed from reportedly eating and drinking tinned and bottled food and alcohol scavenged from the burnt shop.
During the fire, looters and opportunists laid their hands on anything they could, including policemen and security guards themselves, it was claimed.
It was also claimed that many settlements had men on a drinking spree from the free “boiled” beer, spirits and wines.
According to a resident medical officer who did not want to be named, the knife wound patients were mostly men who, after drinking, got involved in fights.
 “When they came here, we asked them how they were hurt and they said  from fighting after drinking the looted beer”.
With  the other patients, he said it was mostly women who came with stomach pains while others with diarrhoea or pains said they ate tinned fish and meat reportedly sold cheaply at their compounds after Saturday’s fire.
Only two patients were sent to the cholera command centre, one diagnosed with cholera, who was under observation when The National called while the other was monitored and later discharged.
Although health warnings were issued to residents during the fire last Saturday, opportunists were reportedly spotted yesterday morning leaving the burnt down wholesale with bags of 10kg rice  and bags full of SP bottles found amid the burnt debris.

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