Tsunami survivors suffering infected wounds and pneumonia
Broken bones and infected wounds are the biggest health problem facing staff in overflowing hospitals in Indonesia’s shattered Aceh province, United Nations officials said today.
UNICEF director Carol Bellamy and World Health Organisation Director-General Dr Lee Jong-wook toured the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, visiting hospitals and makeshift clinics tending the thousands of people injured in the December 26 earthquake and tsunami.
Staff at the hospitals said that many people had infected wounds sustained in the disaster, some of which were turning gangrenous, forcing surgeons to amputate limbs.
There were no exact numbers on gangrene cases.
The second biggest health problem was pneumonia caused by people who inhaled dirty water when the tsunami battered the region, hospital staff said.
There is also a growing problem of diarrhoea, especially in children, workers said, but they stressed that the diarrhoea was not linked to cholera, typhoid or dysentery.
So far, there is no evidence of outbreaks of those diseases.
US officials said three of Banda Aceh’s five hospitals are now working, staffed by Indonesians and foreign helpers, but they are struggling to find beds for all their patients in recent days as US military aid flights evacuate the injured from remote communities devastated by the quake and waves.
As well as the hospitals, smaller clinics are springing up across Banda Aceh, many of them staffed by volunteers. One has been established at the offices of a local television station.
Bellamy and Lee were expected to hold talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell later today.
Powell also was visiting the region to see the widespread destruction.
