Wilfried Devilliers (special envoy to Gölbasi)
modified to
8:19 a.m., February 20, 2023
Two weeks after the earthquakes that killed at least 45,000 people, a French mobile hospital set up in the city of Gölbasi in Turkey to help survivors of the tragedy. From now on, the country is thinking of reconstruction, of the thousands of disaster victims and the wounded that the hospitals, partly destroyed, can no longer take care of.
Hope is over. Only mourning remains. Two weeks after the earthquakes that killed at least 45,000 people, Turkey is hardly looking for survivors. From now on, the country is thinking of reconstruction, of the thousands of disaster victims and the wounded that the hospitals, partly destroyed, can no longer take care of. To help them, a French team set up a field hospital last week near the town of Gölbasi.
“We come to follow up”
Leaning on his walker, Baran can no longer walk properly. “It hurts me. My knee is very swollen. As soon as I move, I have pain. I can walk with my canes but it’s complicated”, he explains at the microphone of Europe 1. The old man first wanted to go to the city hospital but it is only partially functioning. So the Turkish doctors sent him to the French field hospital. Mina, the radiologist, carried out the first tests on the injured: “By doing my incidence, I suspected a tibial plateau fracture”.
Next door, a nurse reassures a mother whose little girl is burning with fever. “The ears, the mouth… it’s ok!”, declares the nurse while examining the child. “We were told yesterday that she had hyperpyrexia. We are coming to follow up,” explains the little girl’s mother.
For another three weeks
In this small space, everything works like in a classic hospital. Two operating theaters are even ready for surgical emergencies. The members of the medical team have already carried out more than 300 consultations: “leg fractures, arm fractures and wounds that were seen very quickly at first and patients who come back to have dressings. We have also received a lot of chronic respiratory failure”, enumerates the doctor colonel Isabelle Arnaud. The field hospital should still remain installed for three weeks.
