earthquake in China

earthquake in China

The first hospital opened in June in Qingchuan, an area where 250,000 residents lost their only medical clinic after the initial quake and subsequent aftershocks. Both facilities provide both inpatient and outpatient services and feature operating and emergency rooms, a laboratory and maternity ward.

“There would be no inpatients if not for the AmeriCares hospital,” a doctor at the Qingchuan facility told AmeriCares relief workers a few weeks ago. The opening of the facility has enabled this doctor and his colleagues to treat between 200-300 inpatients within the hospital’s first four weeks’ of operation. Residents of China’s Sichuan Province are still facing many obstacles as they recover from the deadly earthquake of May 12, but worries about health care and medical treatment have receded since the opening of two AmeriCares field hospitals in the area. Staffed by a team of local medical professionals, the hospital in Qingchuan has been averaging about 130 people daily since its June 24 opening. In addition, it has treated between 200 and 300 people on an inpatient basis, who are mainly pregnant women and individuals recovering from surgeries. Fifty surgeries have been completed in the first month, and 30 babies have been delivered.

“The people in Xuankou and Qingchuan are remarkably resilient, but the day-to-day living experience is still difficult here,” says Hoyer, who has been in China since May 17, five days after the earthquake. “By helping to meet the health care needs of these two communities, AmeriCares is supporting thousands of people as they continue the recovery process.”

In addition to the two field hospitals, AmeriCares has purchased an ambulance for the hospital in Qingchuan and is in the process of providing medical equipment to a third hospital in the town of Shuimo to help meet the most urgent needs of the people within Shuimo and its 18 surrounding villages. The equipment will allow the hospital to expand its services...