This Monday (21), the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro started a DNA collection effort to identify and locate the victims of the rains in Petrópolis, in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro.
So far, at least 171 people have died since strong storms hit the municipality on February 15.
A group of family doctors has also been working at the support points, assisting the homeless, carrying out a census, distributing medication, treating complications and welcoming them.
In an interview with CNN, the director of the Brazilian Society of Family and Community Medicine (SBMFC), Julia Morelli Rosas, reported that many people are going to the affected areas to try to help in the relief work.
“We are experiencing an unusual problem, which is the number of people wanting to help. This has been hindering the displacement of the teams a little. Until the arrival of professionals who are already assigned by the Health Department to work in the region”, she said.
She comments that the city of Petrópolis has a good number of health professionals, including the presence of a university
“We have been asking people to first go to the Health Department and the crisis office to make themselves available so that, in a coordinated way, they can actively contribute,” he added.
The doctor reported that in the first days the work done was more focused on calming the victims and treating the injuries caused by landslides and landslides.
At this moment, health professionals are focusing their work on shelters, for example, ensuring that people with chronic illnesses who have lost their belongings do not miss treatment.
“We carried out a whole action to organize the medicines and prescriptions of these people”, he says.
“This whole situation is very upsetting. What we have been trying to do is to minimize, to alleviate a little this condition through direct care and monitoring of the chronic diseases that they already have”, she concluded.
Source: CNN Brasil
