A day of chaos at the hospital: Patients on floors and field
A day of chaos at the hospital: Patients on floors and field gurneys, doctors scavenging for supplies[ Eds: ///Recaps previous.///[ AP Photos XAI102,106-107[ By EMMA ROSS= AP Medical Writer= BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) -
A day of chaos at Banda Aceh hospital
Emma Ross Reuters/Banda Aceh
Sawing through the door of an abandoned laboratory, scavenging for oxygen machines at the airport and crafting makeshift IV medicine bag hooks out of tent pegs.
It's a day in the life of the most functional hospital in the community hardest hit by the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami, a place where patients lie on new white body bags because they are plentiful and easy to clean.
The Teungku Fakinah Hospital is the only hospital in Banda Aceh that escaped significant tsunami damage. But when an Australian medical team arrived in the days after the disaster, patients and staff were nowhere to be seen.
"The place was deserted. Our people figured they either died or ran away," said Dr. Hugh Grantham.
That was then. Now, there are patients, and many of them are in trouble. 8 a.m.:
About a dozen doctors and nurses set off on morning rounds.
Seventy patients are packed tight in rooms and in corridors, lying on field gurneys or floor mats, their families around them.
Their names are taped to the walls on scraps of paper. Their clothes stick to them, and their bodies glisten with sweat. They are fanning themselves or each other with scraps of cardboard.
IV bags hang from clothes lines strung from one end of the room to the other.
Most of the patients were battered and cut by debris caught up in the tsunami waters. Many inhaled dirty water. Others are dying of tetanus.
Many have flaps of flesh torn away from their bones, or skin torn from muscle. Unattended, the wounds close and pus forms inside, creating the risk of gangrene and deadly blood poisoning.
In a corner, a young man lies on a body bag atop a gurney, surrounded by women mopping his brow, reading from a Muslim prayer book and rocking back and forth, chanting "Allah" in his ear. The paper on the wall above his head reads "Marwan."
He stares vacantly, his chest moving up and down rapidly. His heart races. He came in overnight with pneumonia caused by inhaling tsunami water. He moans, tossing his head from side to side, gnashing his teeth and screwing up his face in pain.
The doctors prescribe antibiotics and oxygen. 9 a.m: Grantham convenes a meeting of all medical teams in an attempt at coordination. While the Australians were the only medical workers at the hospital in the early days, there are now teams from several countries - each with their own turf.
"We've got the Estonians, Canadians, the Taiwanese and then the Indonesians. It has taken a number of days to persuade this 'United Nations' to work together," said Grantham.
"They all arrived as independent teams to do their bit and what I've been doing is welding them together into a hospital," the Australian said.
A police doctor came from Jakarta to take over hospital administration. An Estonian medical team installed themselves in the emergency room. So did a Taiwanese team and a Malaysian team.
The Estonians report there's no one to clean the emergency room. Dr. Lufti Bagus, the police doctor, offers to find someone. The Estonians say they will pay -- it's going to cost the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes a day.
Another problem: patients are being fed only rice -- not enough to keep their immune systems up and promote healing. The Indonesians have a cook who goes to the market every day, but money is tight. The Australians say they will pay for better food.
There's also a problem with patients who are well enough to leave but have nowhere to go. Perhaps a humanitarian organization can take them? "I'll see what I can arrange," Lufti offers.
As the meeting winds up, four South Koreans -- a dermatologist, a gastroenterologist and two nurses -- arrive and offer their services. Grantham thanks them for volunteering but tells them the hospital is well staffed. They insist on staying.
12:30 p.m.: The emergency room is teeming. The South Koreans have set themselves up in a corner, the Estonians have the rest of the room. The injured and the ill sit patiently waiting their turn on worn wooden benches, smoking and watching doctors dress wounds.
Meanwhile, the Australian doctors have reshuffled the patients in the wards, creating a low-grade intensive care unit and getting the rest of the sick out of the corridors. A lone man sweeps the tiled corridor.
The place almost looks normal.
David Mack, a rescue worker, has finally breached the locked lab with a hammer and saw and created a hole big enough to crawl through. Dr. Andrew Pearce, an Australian surgeon, is the first one in.
As soon as he enters, the glee is clear on his face. The lab appears to be fully stocked with modern equipment. A new refrigerator in the corner is stuffed with chemical reagents and other materials for lab tests.
"We're doing bush medicine at the moment. Now we can go beyond that. This is a full lab. I'm excited," he said.
The lab has a spooky feeling. The log book lies open at the last used page. Dozens of entries are recorded on Dec. 25, but there's only one entry for Dec. 26, the day of the earthquake and tsunami.
Pearce opens the cupboards and lets out a cry of delight -- urine test strips, portable blood sugar monitors, test kits. He fills his arms with as many of the treasures as possible before heading to the wards.
Mack sets out to hammer IV bag hooks out of tent pegs. 2 p.m.:
Grantham turns his attention to the South Koreans' hold on the emergency room, but when he gets there, they have gone back to their camp. He puts the task on his list for the next day.
Dr. Bruce Paix, one of the Australian team's anesthesiologists, goes to raid aid shipments coming into the airport for oxygen concentrators -- machines that suck in air and spit out oxygen. He takes three boxes of antibiotics to trade.
On the way to the airport aid compound, he stops at the public hospital, which is not fully functioning but has a field surgery unit being run by the Australian army. He scores two bottles of inhalable anesthetic -- enough for six operations.
At the airport, he splashes through the boggy grounds from tent to tent, deluged by the monsoon rains, begging for an oxygen concentrator. The Spanish, who are operating a triage tent for tsunami survivors, say they have one but it's not available until the next day.
Back at the hospital, the rains are pelting down, soaking the laundry draped from trees and strung up across the grassy courtyard.
The Australian doctors, hot and sweaty, rush out fully clothed and start lathering up their clothes. Then they strip off to their swim trunks and bathe in the rain - it's the only running fresh water they can get.
3:30 p.m.:
Marwan, the young man suffering from pneumonia, has been given oxygen and antibiotics, but they didn't work. He dies -- one of four patients the doctors lose that day. Two others, including a 14-year-old boy, die of pneumonia and another patient dies of tetanus.
On this day, like any other since the tsunami, relatives often take the body away for burial, but sometimes they don't. And sometimes there are no relatives.
GetAP 1.00 -- JAN 12, 2005 08:51:11