Battle on in Banda Aceh to save those who can be saved<\/p>\n
Laurence Boutreux, Agence France-Presse, Banda Aceh<\/p>\n
When Australian surgeon Paul Shumack arrived at Banda Aceh's
\nmilitary hospital there were hundreds of dead bodies littering
\nthe corridors.<\/p>\n
Most of the medical staff were either dead, had disappeared or
\nwere off looking for missing relatives.<\/p>\n
Four days later and his team of surgeons is battling to save
\nas many lives as they can, but with gangrene setting in, that job
\noften involves amputation.<\/p>\n
At the entrance to the operating theater of the military
\nhospital, Nuraini lies on a camp bed.<\/p>\n
The devastating tsunamis that crashed ashore here after a
\nmassive earthquake just off the Aceh coast on Dec. 26 claimed the
\nlives of her husband, three sons, mother and two brothers.<\/p>\n
When the waves entered her house, they tossed the 37-year-old
\naround. \"The debris of the roof made wounds on her face, arms and
\nchest,\" her younger sister explains.<\/p>\n
\"A lot of people are suffering terribly infected wounds,\"
\nShumack says, explaining that debris embedded in body tissue was
\nto blame.<\/p>\n
He is one of a team of five Australian surgeons working around
\nthe clock at the hospital.<\/p>\n
\"We try to salvage people's arms and legs, but sometimes the
\nonly way to save their life is amputation,\" he says.<\/p>\n
He has just cut into the knee of a woman whose leg is infected
\nfrom the thigh down to her foot.<\/p>\n
The hospital was in a hideous state when he arrived, he
\nexplains: \"There were, around the corner, 500 bodies in black
\nbags.\"<\/p>\n
And although some international aid is getting through, the
\nhospital is still woefully short of staff.<\/p>\n
\"The international community is certainly providing mainly
\ndoctors, but what is lacking in this hospital is nursing staff,\"
\nhe says.<\/p>\n
Most of the hospital's regular staff have not been at work
\nsince the disaster, their fate unknown.<\/p>\n
\"When I came here, on December 28, there were only 15
\nemployees left,\" says neurosurgeon Sahat Edison, from the south
\nof Indonesia's Sumatra province -- the worst affected in the
\ncatastrophe that caused destruction around the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n
\"They may have disappeared, or didn't came back to work
\nbecause they are trying to find their relatives,\" says Edison,
\nwho is overseeing the running of the hospital.<\/p>\n
Medical volunteers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China
\nand Japan are working at the hospital, almost lending it an air
\nof normality.<\/p>\n
Fifty of the hospital's beds are reserved for military
\npersonnel while 200 others have been made available for civilians
\nbeing fed a diet of noodles, cake and mineral water.<\/p>\n
On a list of patients posted in a corridor are 25 cases of
\ntyphoid, but Edison says they are not a major cause of concern,
\ndespite fears that epidemics could claim as many lives as the
\ntsunamis themselves.<\/p>\n
\"This is not because of the quake. Maybe it would have been
\nthe same under normal conditions,\" he explains.<\/p>\n
\"Epidemics are not yet a problem. Most people suffer severe
\ninfections because of their wounds.\"<\/p>\n
The main priority for the hospital, he adds, is to find bed
\nspace. With so many patients made homeless, few are keen to
\nleave, even once they have started to recover.<\/p>\n
In the center of the town, utterly devastated by the massive
\ntsunamis, the General Zainul Abidin hospital has been flooded
\nwith a tide of mud.<\/p>\n
Beds and furniture lie where they were dumped by the tide that
\nswept through the wards, leaving a high-water-mark halfway up the
\nwall.<\/p>\n
Surgical masks covering their faces, soldiers get to work
\ncleaning up the mess.<\/p>",
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