It’s the first day and the stress shakes a place already stressed by the earthquake that a week ago shook with great virulence Turkey and Syria. “Hey, where do I leave the truck with the water? Do you need it?” a man comes shouting. The boss of the field hospital He doubts, asks, says that they haven’t asked for it but that it’s okay, it will be useful for them. “Back there, through the back door,” the center’s coordinator replies in Spanish. A translator relays it to the man in the truck, who leaves without a word. Again, the stress of the first day.
The facility is a conglomerate of open-air tents that, this Monday, opened the Spanish Cooperation Agency in front of a refugee camp earthquake In the town of Alexandretta, one of the most affected in the Anatolian country. In all, between Turkey and Syriathe death toll as a result of the earthquake now exceeds 37,000 people.
“It is very important that there is a primary care, because the local hospitals are overwhelmed with patients that they treated in the first moments of the earthquake. There are many displaced people who have been left without housing and also without healthcare: they have no access,” explains Yolanda Barrios, the hospital’s medical coordinator.
The need for health care in the region was overwhelming: just a week ago, before the earthquake, there were two hospitals in Alexandretta. This Monday, a week later, one of them is totally collapsed; the other, in part.
“Everything that we can deal with here we do so that it doesn’t get there [a la sanidad turca]. It is a favor that we do so that patients can be treated and support the local health system,” explains Barrios. Behind him, dozens are waiting: some are injured. Most, however, are not. They are, above all, people with chronic diseases and somewhat minor ailments. With Turkish healthcare overwhelmed by the tens of thousands injured in the quake, thousands have seen the doors to Turkish hospitals closed to them.
On guard against cholera
The emergency situation, in the 10 affected Turkish provinces – in addition to northwestern Syria – is different in each case, but something is common in all places: the sanitary conditions and the arrival of hygienic aid has taken time or is, right now , almost inexistent. The fear that the conditions of many villages and refugee camps lead to a cholera outbreak either typhoid fever it is real.
“We are prepared to treat a possible outbreak because we have the necessary elements. I cannot venture whether there will be one or not. The only possibility that I see right now is that people came from the other side of the border, where there are reported cases not on this side, and only with the presence of the bacteria in fecal water can transmission occur,” explains Marçal Trigo, a water treatment, sanitation and hygiene technician at the field hospital.
However, there is much more to it than an imminent danger of epidemic psychiatric. In the region, before the earthquake, lived about 13 million people. All of them have been affected, all of them have deaths among their relatives and close friends. Some of them—those who have not had the money or resources to do so—are still trapped in their regions. This earthquake will mean a before and after for Turkey.
Resilience and expectations for improvement
“People are very distressed, especially because of the fear they experienced during the earthquake, but they are also afraid that it will happen again. There are aftershocks on a daily basis and that brings to life the situation they experienced when the earthquake occurred a week ago. Many think it will happen again,” explains psychiatrist Ricardo Angora, a member of the team at the Spanish field hospital in Alejandreta.
“The most important thing is to do interventions to manage fear and stress. Many of these people have been working their whole lives to have a house and now they are left with nothing. That is very frustrating and very distressing for anyone, and then there is the uncertainty about what will happen from now on, which is why it is very important to work on these aspects with them: the resiliencestrengthen their ability to rebuild themselves, give them expectations that they will be able to get ahead”, adds Angora.
Related news
The work, however, is enormous, almost impossible. The doctor agrees: treating a patient with personal trauma is one thing; treat a collective trauma it is quite different. “Everything becomes much more complicated,” says Angora. “When a collective trauma occurs, the intensity of the trauma is greater than when it occurs individually, because there is a kind of contagion of trauma, a contagion of the stress that people are experiencing.
Turkey, in the coming weeks, will begin to recover from the shock of its tens of thousands of deaths and its lost cities. And then the most difficult question will surely arise: What now?