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Hundreds of quake victims in need of medical attention |
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Thursday, 24 August 2006 |
Twenty-two-month-old Anisa lies stiffly in bed. She suffers from spastic paralysis, resulting from damage to her brain caused by lack of oxygen during the earthquake that struck Central Java on May 27. Anisa was found under rubble in the arms of her mother, Suyamtini, 10 minutes after the quake, writes Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Bantul, National News - August 23, 2006 at http://www.thejakartapost.com/
Forwarded by Budhi Mulyawan 240806.
"I checked for their pulses but there were none. Their breath was also fading. So I made attempts to resuscitate my wife and child, but only Anisa regained consciousness," said her father, Dwi.
Doctors believe she stopped breathing for 10 minutes. A lack of oxygen to the brain is one of the main causes of spastic paralysis, which is marked by stiff muscles or the inability to move some body parts.
Anisa is just one of the hundreds of quake survivors who are in poor health.
Karsadi, a resident of Piyungan, Bantul, broke his ankle and four of his toes in the quake. When he went to the hospital in Yogyakarta, however, he was informed he did not have any broken bones.
"They just bandaged up my leg, and the pain gradually got worse," he told The Jakarta Post.
He did not receive any better treatment when he went to the hospital a second time. By early July, the pain had become unbearable. He went to the Indonesian Red Crescent (BSMI) clinic, which is run in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates government.
"The moment they examined me, they said I wasn't going anywhere until they had operated, because four of my toes were broken."
Tri Wijaya, the coordinator of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) in Bantul, said a health team that carried out door-to-door checks in remote areas found 370 people were in urgent need of medical attention.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg. We are certain there are still many more ill survivors who have slipped through the system," he said.
Hartanto, who lives in a village in Imogiri, Bantul, faces the prospect of having his right foot amputated. A gaping wound on the sole of his foot has twice become severely infected because it was never properly treated.
"This was not the fault of the medical team. Please understand, hospitals were overwhelmed in the days after the quake," Tri said.
He said his organization would comb remote areas of Bantul every day looking for people in need of medical attention.
"We will continue searching for victims until December because we're certain that many of them have been left untreated," he said.
Apart from the PMI, quake victims can also get treatment at other emergency hospitals set up in Bantul, such as the BSMI clinic, which offers free medicine and physiotherapy.
"We will extend the end of the treatment period from July until October, because there are still a lot of people in need," Tri said.
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