Patients treated in tents following strong quakes

9/13/2007

PADANG : Hundreds of patients at a number of Padang hospitals are being treated in tents outside hospital buildings after the string of earthquakes and aftershocks that rattled West Sumatra over the past two days.

"We evacuated the patients to four safer places and provided them with medical treatment in makeshift tents," Suchyar Iskandar, the director of Dr M Djamil Hospital in Padang, said Thursday.

He said that around 400 of the hospital's patients were treated in emergency tents.

Suchyar also said around 600 medical personnel and technicians were sent to provide treatment for patient

Suchyar said the hospital's walls were cracked in theearthquakes.

At Yos Sudarso Hospital, 67 patients were also evacuated to safer places. Sitorus, the chief security guard at the hospital, said some patients had been taken home by family members.

The head of the Emergency Care Unit at Reksodiwiryo Hospital, Bet, said the hospital had also evacuated patients although some were treated in the hospital's corridors.