Disaster Relief

Immediately after the devastating earthquake in Gujarat in January 2001, Amma dispatched a team of medical specialists from AIMS to assist in any way possible. Most of the medical team, equipment and drugs were sent by plane. Two ambulances, fully equipped with emergency care facilities, drove for three days to reach the troubled area.

In Anjar town, near the epicentre of the quake, the army had constructed an emergency medical area under a two-acre tarpaulin where all the medical teams worked along side one another. AIMS doctors set up an operation theatre in one tent and attended to outpatients in another two. The ambulances transported people non-stop.

The medical team consisted of specialists in neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, anaesthesiology, general surgery and paediatrics. AIMS doctors and nurses gave invaluable help to the other doctors who needed specialist advice.

The medical team tended 900 injured and sick people. They performed numerous operations and treated severe bone fractures. They treated secondary conditions like respiratory infections, infected wounds, fever, vomiting and diarrhea. Three babies were delivered, one by Caesarean section.

In such a large-scale emergency, only rudimentary aid can be given in the first days. Emergency teams work fast giving essential treatment, often without X-rays. The AIMS doctors diagnosed, set, and reset fractures that had been treated only in haste. They saved many people from becoming permanent cripples and organised very severe cases to be airlifted to Mumbai.

They also visited remote villages and discovered even more wounded people and many children left lying in tents in agony, with no hope of aid. The ambulances were of vital importance in bringing these people to Anjar for treatment.

Working with other relief agencies, and seeing how they could play a vital role, the team returned to AIMS thinking of the future. The experience impressed on them the necessity for a thoroughly organised disaster response strategy. They intend to prepare a comprehensive disaster relief team, especially for southern India.

Emergency care ambulances: on the right, the ambulance that served in the Gujarat relief efforts

Dr. Ashok, resident in Neurosurgery, AIMS Disaster Relief Team, says: “When you see people is such horrible conditions facing life with such equipoise, it is awesome. How can the problems of our lives compare? We learn how insignificant we are, how everything can be gone in a few minutes. But these people, they have developed the mental strength to go on in adversity.