Medical workers in Turkey and Syria sacrificed their own protection to see the death toll from a magnitude 7. 8 earthquake surpassed 36,000.
A doctor in Idlib, Syria, told NPR that what he faces is different from what he faces as a result of an ongoing civil war.
“The injury is of another type because it is due to debris,” Mohamed Al-Abrash, MD, a surgeon at Idlib Central Hospital, told NPR. “They have other types of injuries, which are not considered war wounds. “” he said, mentioning head fractures and brain hemorrhages, where immediate intervention is needed but not possible.
“Really, it’s too massive for us to take care of those patients,” he added.
Often, medical professionals work while grieving a group of family and friends who may not be spared. Al-Abrash said he lost a colleague as well as the colleague’s wife and two children as a result of the earthquakes. The surgeon’s space had been destroyed and his 3 children and wife had been displaced, now living in 3 other cities.
He noted that even those who had been saved are now homeless, and the bloodless expose them to serious health problems.
Ibrahim Ulas Ozturan, MD, PhD, an emergency physician in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, described a sense of depression at the scale of the disaster. He told WMTV that aid workers had not yet arrived in some villages a week after the disaster. initial earthquake, and that about 100,000 more people are still trapped in the rubble.
Even ambulances bringing patients stopped for a while because they were picking up bodies left on streets that were beginning to attract wildlife, Ozturan said.
Two viral videos captured from the Feb. 6 tremors showed nurses running to protect babies and children at İnayet Topçuoğlu Hospital in Gaziantep, the epicenter of the quake. The unit’s incubators stood still as the floor shook, protecting them from their bodies. Several sites know nurses such as Devlet Nizam and Gazel Çalışkan.
At the same hospital, a video shared through TRT World, a Turkish public broadcasting service, showed a nurse named Şeyma Alakuş running into two hospital rooms and carrying two children to safety, even as debris began to surround the camera.
In a recent interview with A Spor, a Turkish sports news site, Alakuş, speaking from the hospital, said, “At the time, I was only thinking about my patients. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with regrets for the rest of my life. “
At a news conference Sunday from Damascus, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, described a woman he knew named Nour who lost her parents and broke her arm when her construction, one of millions affected by the tragedy, collapsed.
“The crises composed of conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline and now the earthquake have wreaked unbearable havoc,” he said. “I also offer my deep respect and admiration to survivors and first responders, adding our own WHO staff. “
Ghebreyesus pressed the WHO’s commitment to support the Syrian people, saying the firm “welcomes the relief from U. S. sanctions. “Delivery of humanitarian aid.
Sophie Putka is a MedPage Today company and researcher. His paintings have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Discover, Business Insider, Inverse, Cannabis Wire, etc. Joined MedPage Today in August 2021.