A DOCTOR has spoken out about the harrowing conditions in a refugee camp after working at a health clinic.

Dr Abdul Mannan and his friend Dr Muhammad Al-Amin visited a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh for around a fortnight at the end of April this year.

They paid for their own flights and expenses so they could join volunteers at the clinic in the Kutupalong camp at Cox's Bazar.

The pair were greeted by huts made of bamboo and hay, which housed the refugees who had fled persecution in Myanmar.

Dr Mannan, who runs a GP practice in Haslingden, said conditions on the camp were 'very poor'.

He said: "There are 17 camps and ours was camp four in Kutupalong which is one of the bigger ones.

"There were around 250,000 refugees within or in the immediate vicinity of the camp.

"Official figures suggest there are eight to nine hundred thousand refugees in total but on the ground it's about 1.4million.

"The camp where we were was overcrowded and conditions were very basic with poor sanitation."

Dr Mannan and Dr Al-Amin, who works at St Nicholas Group Practice in Burnley, volunteered with MedGlobal at the clinic, run by the charity Obat Helpers, which has trained 74 Rohingyan refugees as clinical support workers.

Dr Mannan said: "At the clinic, we worked 12 hours a day and dealt with a mixture of GP type cases such as infections and chest problems and people with mental health issues.

"There was also so many people with Post-traumatic stress disorder who just didn't have any support or help in the form of counselling services that they needed.

"The sheer number of people attending the clinic was more like an A&E."

He also recalled horror stories from refugees, including one of a 40-day-old baby who died from dehydration after her mother had walked more than three hours to get help from a clinic at a refugee camp.

He said: "It really was heartbreaking to hear all these stories.

"Your heart just stops a beat and you go into shock listening to people."

The doctors also spent four weeks before they left the UK raising more than £12,500 to buy medical equipment, testing machines and medicines to take with them.

They also raised an extra £1,000 before they left Bangladesh to buy uniforms and equipment for the support workers.

Dr Mannan added: "We went to Bangladesh because we wanted to help the refugees and the volunteers and raise awareness their ordeal.

"Experiences like this really hit home to me how lucky we are in the UK."