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Czech medical team to help earthquake victims

The Czech government approved Monday  April 27, 2015, sending a medical trauma team to help Nepal earthquake victims. The team of over 30 physicians and disaster management specialists departed for Nepal shortly. They left for a two-week mission, which, however, will probably be extended by another two weeks. The same aircraft that transported the Trauma Team brought back to the Czech Republic some Czechs and other EU nationals who were staying in Nepal when the devastating earthquake happened.

The Czech government has earmarked 20 million crowns for the trauma team´s mission. The government has furthermore agreed on the flight with the Travel Service air carrier that would provide a Boeing 737. The date of the Czech team´s departure depended on the time the plane could land at the Kathmandu airport, which in the end happened on April 29, 2015. The Czech team in Nepal is comprised of nine doctors and 10 nurses from the Brno University Hospital and they are be complemented by 13 officers from the Prague firefighter squad.

Czech Trauma Team operates in Melamchi (Chautara region) now. It is a district town with about five thousand inhabitants and the area belongs to the most affected in Nepal. Due to the fact that the Czech team is one of the largest and best equipped it was allocated to the city center Melamchi. On the spot also operate smaller medical teams from DE, PL and Japan. All teams cooperate very closely but leaving more complex cases to the Czech team, which is better equipped and better staffed.  The team is located next to a local hospital with basically no equipment. The hospital operates a Nepalese doctor who covers an area of ​​80,000 inhabitants. Czech team helps with the treatment of cases that the hospital receives and it also helps to provide the power supply to the hospital with its own generator, otherwise the hospital would not be able to function at all.

Daily Czech doctors provide medical treatment to about 80 patients (overall, there is for the first five days of action over 400) but the structure of treated patients is slowly changing and numbers of received patients vary day by day. Until now, it was primarily treatment of injuries caused by the earthquake and aftershocks (fractures, superficial wounds, bruises, infections, open fractures, etc.). Newly the team begins to deal with increasingly frequent diarrhoeal disease, fever, abdominal pain, etc. The structure of these problems suggests that the region could soon face serious infections or epidemics such as outbreak of typhoid epidemy or cholera. Czech team is constantly struggling with the lack of drinking water and fuel, the team also lacks at least one all-terrain vehicle to ensure the collection of patients from the surrounding mountains. Czech team had to hire two off-road vehicles which ensure the transport of patients as well as supplying their own camp.

Between May 5 and 7, 2015,  Ambassador M. Stašek visited to Nepal in order to determine further needs of the Czech trauma team. Ambassador discussed with the Nepalese government, the UN and the EU representatives, communicated condolences of the Czech Government for the tragic earthquake in Nepal and described the wave of sentiment and solidarity which overwhelmed the Czech Republic in the days after earthquake. Nepal truly appreciates help provided by the Czech Republic that should continue in the following period (sending humanitarian aid though Czech Red Cross, and other organizations such as People In Need).

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CZ traumatým