A team of 20 Australian medical staff will start treating people injured by Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu’s capital of Port Vila today.
The group, from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, includes doctors, nurses, paramedics and logisticians.
Team leader Julian Meagher said the group was keen to start their work in Port Vila, where the main hospital was partly damaged by the cyclone.
“That’s going to be mainly, in the first instance, wounds caused by the cyclone, but with any humanitarian aid, they’re quite complex and they do move and shift, so another key focus for us will be monitoring for outbreaks of infectious disease in displaced people,” he said.
At least 11 people have been killed in the disaster but aid agencies have warned that the death toll is likely to rise.
Acting head of the centre Nicholas Coatsworth says the medics are well equipped with ward capacity for up to 80 patients.
“There’s a resuscitation room, there’s an emergency room, there’s primary care facilities,” he said.
“There’s all the things the Vanuatu government have asked of us and that we can provide to help rebuild that health system.”
Meanwhile, the UN has joined the Government in declaring that supply of food to people in remote areas of Vanuatu is now a real concern.
Most residents in remote islands relied on subsistence gardens to survive, but those have been destroyed.
It has become increasingly clear that the worst of the damage is on Tanna and Erromango islands.
Care Australia said in one village north of Tanna, not one building remained standing.
The UN have also warned against Port Vila becoming a bottle neck and said it was important supplies reached beyond the capital as soon as possible.
Electricity and the water supply is up and running in Port Vila and communications are returning intermittently.