A group of doctors and medical staff from Melbourne have returned from Nepal where they treated hundreds of earthquake victims with serious spinal injuries.
The group was the first international medical rehabilitation team on the ground after the magnitude-7.8 quake struck last month, killing more than 8,000 people and injuring tens of thousands more.
Royal Melbourne Hospital rehabilitation director Professor Fary Khan led the seven-person team.
“We saw roughly between 70 to 80 patients a day and almost 80 per cent of them had come with acute injuries,” she said.
“Bits of buildings falling onto their backs, trauma that led to fracture and disruption and dislocation of the spinal cord.
“So it was quite nasty — it was the cord [that] was severed completely — that was quite difficult.”
She said it was difficult treating many patients with different levels of need without help from neurosurgeons or proper equipment.
“Dispensing medical aid was difficult because they didn’t really have emergency procedures there, and it’s hard to explain in a disaster setting where you don’t just expect the routine hospital to come into action,” she said.
A magnitude-7.3 earthquake hit the region on Tuesday, making the already difficult job a lot harder, Professor Khan said.
Mary Galea, a physiotherapist on the team, said anyone who could run, ran straight away.
“Those that were stuck in bed were stuck in bed, and they were terrified — we were terrified as well,” she said.
At least 91 people died in the second quake, and more than 1,000 people were injured.
Santos Ramirez, one of two nurses on the team, was halfway through removing surgical staples from a patient when the hospital shook.
“We had to encourage the patient not to move because he just wanted to run, and because he’s a spinal patient he couldn’t even stand up,” he said.
Mr Ramirez then helped carry dozens of bed-ridden patients outside on mattresses.
Prosthetist Mark Graf said the second earthquake brought back unpleasant memories.
“Santos and Mary and myself just assisted carrying people out while it was quaking and shaking, and it was very traumatic for the people to go through it again,” he said.
Professor Khan said rehabilitation medicine was crucial for preventing further complications in already injured people.
“Issues of bladder and bowl and skin breakdown and severe pain was a real issue and that’s what we had to train the local staff to be able to deal with,” she said.
The team developed a “cheat sheet” to leave behind for local staff to help them deal with the growing number of spinal patients.
Other specialist rehabilitation teams from India and Pakistan have now joined the efforts, so the Melbourne team will return to their regular work on Monday.