Chaos in hospitals after killer typhoon

EXHAUSTED: STAFF STRUGGLE TO PROVIDE BASIC CARE

No electricity, wards flooded, equipment destroyed and ceilings caving in.

Jennifer Purga tearfully pumped air into her critically ill husband’s lungs, willing his sepsisravaged body to respond as he lay in a roofless hospital, with no water or power.

The Divine Word Hospital in the typhoon-wrecked Philippine city of Tacloban was the vision of a world without redemption yesterday as exhausted hospital staff struggled to provide basic care to patients – some with horrific injuries.

Part of the ceiling had caved in, exposing now-useless electrical wires that dangled harmlessly towards the ground.

Despite the lack of electricity, Divine Word is the only truly functioning hospital left in Tacloban, a once-bustling city of 220 000 people that was utterly devastated by one of the most powerful typhoons ever to make landfall.

“We lost nine patients during the typhoon when a power cut affected those who were on life support,” Valentina Gamba, the director of nursing, said.

The storm surge inundated the ground floor of the 200-bed facility, destroying the MRI, ultrasound and X-ray equipment, as well as the emergency room and laboratory facilities.

Gamba said the dire situation had forced medical staff into making life-and-death decisions as to who could be effectively treated. “There was one patient we could revive if we had the facilities, but we just left him,” she said.

“It was all chaos, chaos. Really, it was chaos.”

Purga’s husband’s right leg had been crushed by a fallen tree at the height of the storm.

Pinned in agony for hours, he was finally freed and taken the next day to a government hospital, where he received no treatment, his wife said.

She managed to secure his transfer on Thursday to Divine Word, where his leg was amputated; but by that time severe sepsis had set in.

“The doctors say his entire body has been infected,” Purga said, her eyes fi lling with tears as she used both hands to squeeze and release the plastic air pump keeping her husband alive.

With no nursing staff available, Purga had no option but to stay permanently by her husband’s bedside working the pump.

Reinforcements have arrived in the seven days since the typhoon, with relief doctors being joined by volunteer medics from Israel, Japan and South Korea.

The additional staffing meant they could open a surgery ward on the second floor. –