U.S. navy hospital joins relief effort in Nias

U.S. navy hospital joins relief effort in Nias

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A U.S. navy hospital ship arrived off the coast of Nias island on
Tuesday, joining a big international relief effort to provide
medical help and food aid for hundreds of thousands of people
affected by the March 28 earthquake.

Joining the USNS Niagara Falls, which dropped anchor on Monday
off Nias, the 1,000-bed USNS Mercy will provide aid both aboard
and ashore with a range of medical specialties, including trauma,
surgical support, orthopedics, ob-gyn, pediatrics, dental
treatment and laboratory facilities.

All of those services, however, will not be immediately
available, as the crew awaits the arrival of doctors and nurses
from the United States, expected later this week.

"The ship will initially have one operating room, which can be
used up to 12 hours per day as well as two intensive care units
(ICU). Once it picked up more staff on Sibolga, it would have
about 175 extra medical personnel, five ICU beds, 45 regular beds
and three operating rooms. X-ray suites, laboratories and CAT-
scan equipment would also be operational when the extra crew
arrives," Captain Rick Morrison, deputy surgeon for the U.S.
Pacific Fleet, told AFP on Tuesday.

Medical help also came from the Russian mobile hospital, which
has been in Nias since Friday, with 33 rescuers, doctors and
nurses along with two specially trained search dogs and medical
equipment.

The medical team has provided assistance for around 48
patients, mostly with broken bones.

"We also provide one helicopter, as well as an airplane placed
at Polonia airport in Medan," head of the Russian team Vladimir
Boreiko said during a press conference on Tuesday.

A Hungarian rescue team has also arrived, working together
with rescuers from Australia, the Republic of Korea and Japan.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, delivered some 500 baskets of food as
well as three four-wheel drive ambulances and six motorbikes
handed to the Indonesian Red Cross. Seventeen more ambulances
were reportedly on the way.

However, some reports said that foreign rescue teams were
preparing to leave after spending a week sifting through the
debris of thousands of collapsed buildings.

Boreiko said the Russian team would be in Nias for two weeks
unless the Indonesian government asked them to continue the
mission.

An estimated 1,300 people were believed to have been killed
during last week's quake, most of those on Nias, but fatalities
also have been reported on neighboring Simeulue island and nearby
Singkil regency in Aceh.

Gunung Sitoli town, the capital of Nias, was worst affected,
with at least 600 bodies recovered according to police reports,
in addition there were more than 3,000 people injured and some
7,000 buildings, including hospitals, that were destroyed.

Relief groups have taken around 430 seriously injured people
to hospitals on mainland Sumatra. A city health official in Medan
told AFP that around 300 Nias residents were in intensive care
units in 10 hospitals in Medan.

Meanwhile, UNICEF said some 15,000 families were homeless in
Nias, with half of them living in houses of relatives and friends
and about 7,500 others were without shelter.

Some people were unable to get home after being treated for
their injuries, such as Beil Mefu Wao, 17, who was taken by
helicopter on Friday to a hospital with injuries to his head and
limbs.

However, after being released from the hospital, he had no way
to return home to Sorake village, some 140 kilometers southeast
of Gunung Sitoli.

"I do not know how I can get home," said Wao in tears, sitting
near the hospital. "I want to go home, I have been declared
healthy, but I do not know how I can get home."