NOS News•
On Thursday evening, Dick Hollaar had a late shift at the Rotterdam ambulance service. A few hours later, he and about thirty other aid workers from all over the Netherlands were waiting at Schiphol for a flight to Turkey. Their goal: to provide care in the hospital of the earthquake-hit city of Kahramanmaras.
“Total chaos”, is how Hollaar describes the situation he and the rest of the team encountered there. “In the center not a single building is left standing. You see twenty-storey buildings lying on the ground. You have to imagine that the whole of Rotterdam is flattened, that’s how it really is. People live on the street, are homeless, they have nothing left. there is total disarray.”
Photos clearly show the enormous damage in Kahramanmaras:
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Dick Hollar
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Dick Hollar
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Dick Hollar
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Dick Hollar
Hollaar had signed up last week for the Dutch private initiative that organized the contribution of the Dutch in Turkey. The group of seven doctors from the emergency department and 26 nurses, including three interpreters, has been involved in care in Kahramanmaras at various places in recent days. This afternoon the team will return to the Netherlands.
A large part of the Dutch aid workers went to work in the city’s hospital, which miraculously was still completely intact. It was almost empty, because a large part of the Turkish hospital staff themselves were looking for missing relatives.
That is why the Israeli army had temporarily taken over the building. The Dutch team provided support in the emergency department and in the triage department, where it is determined what care a patient needs.
The hospital is located on the outskirts of Kahramanmaras, in the north of the city:
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Dick Hollar
Kahramanmaras hospital -
Dick Hollar
Dutch aid workers at work in the hospital -
Dick Hollar
The Dutch deployment was an initiative of a Dutch-Turkish transport company from Vijfhuizen
“We mainly took care of the regular care,” says Hollaar. “Broken bones, infections, wound care, that just continues. Those people also need to be taken care of.”
General practitioner in tent camp
In addition to the hospital in Kahramanmaras, fellow aid workers from Hollaar also helped at an improvised GP station in the center of the city, in a tent camp for people who have lost their homes due to the earthquake.
“When we arrived, a Turkish doctor and a nurse were working there,” he says. “Of course they were out of everything. My team members helped them so they could get some sleep.”
The tented camp is set up in a football stadium in the center:
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Dick Hollar
Aid workers at the tent camp in Kahramanmaras -
Dick Hollar
The camp is set up near a football stadium in the center of the city
Hollaar heard from team members who visited the villages around Kahramanmaras that the situation there is also harrowing. “In those outlying areas there had not yet been a care provider,” says the 31-year-old ambulance nurse, “while sometimes as many as 20,000 people live in such a village.”
Thousands of people are still missing in some places, says Hollaar. “It’s a lot about the cities, but everything around it has also been hit very hard. It’s so very sad.”
Survivors
Meanwhile, rescuers are still searching for survivors, although the chances of finding any more than a week after the quake are slim. Yet two more brothers were rescued this morning in Kahramanmaras, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported. The boys, aged 17 and 21, had been under the rubble for 198 hours and were taken to hospital by ambulance.
In the meantime, mainly Turkish doctors and nurses are working in that hospital again. “Help is on the way from all parts of Turkey,” said Rotterdam ambulance worker Hollaar. “That’s good to see. I’m going home this afternoon with a good feeling. We did everything we could.”
