Doctors facing burn out

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The doctor who is in charge of the medical response in Papua New Guinea’s earthquake-devastated Hela Province says his team is close to burning out, with backup yet to arrive.

Dr Tana Kiak said his hospital has only about 10 doctors and they have been working non-stop going from village-to-village all day, every day, since the earthquake first struck 12 days ago.

Dr Kiak said they really need help.

It is very difficult because sometimes you want to have a good rest before you go out and make medical evacuations,” he said. “But then you have tremors – aftershocks – and we are still awake in the morning and we have to still go out and collect those very seriously injured people.”

He said until now they still have not had any assistance from the outside.

Aid agencies and the national government said support was on its way to Hela but Dr Kiak says that help can’t come soon enough.