Hospitals packed with injured in tsunami-hit Indonesia

BANJAR (Indonesia): Indonesian hospitals were packed on Tuesday with tsunami survivors, some still wearing sea-soaked clothes, as medical workers clamoured for more equipment and frantic relatives hunted for loved ones.
    
At least 337 people were killed and 510 injured by the walls of water that slammed into Java's south coast on Monday afternoon, while dozens remained missing, according to health authorities.

 

Dr Budi Harjo, the medical team co-ordinator at Banjar district hospital where at least 90 of the injured were taken, said more patients were expected but the hospital's 178 beds were full.

 

"If you talk about medical staff we have enough, but we could use some more beds because a lot of patients brought in are mostly sleeping on the floor on just a mattress," he said.

 

"We need more beds because I'm sure that more injured people are going to be brought in here."

 

Harjo said two orthopaedic surgeons were treating patients but another team from the nearby city of Yogyakarta was on its way.

 

As ambulances screeched to a halt outside the hospital and overworked paramedics wheeled in new patients, waiting relatives of the missing desperately scrambled around the gurneys in hopes of seeing a familiar face.

 

Hospital official Nana Herbiana said three Saudi Arabians were being treated at the hospital, along with one Austrian and two Dutch patients. A Japanese patient was transferred to Jakarta.