Mobile hospital set up in Kathmandu

KATHMANDU: A mobile hospital has been set up here by the Malaysian Medical Relief Society (Mercy Malaysia) to provide treatment for earthquake victims.
Comprising two huge tents where outpatient treatment is provided, the hospital was set up in the outlying Sankharapur municipality, where little aid has managed to reach.
Volunteer operation team leader Dr Heng Aik Cheng said Mercy Malaysia currently has a team of 14 on site, consisting of five doctors, nurses and logistics personnel.
"(More) volunteers are expected to arrive on Friday (today)," he said.
"As soon as we have more volunteers and equipment, we will be setting up an operation (facility) to deal with serious cases," he told theSun.
He said the mobile hospital has been operating since Tuesday and is expected to treat 300 to 400 patients a day.
"We treated 90 patients yesterday. We are expecting more to come as we are the only available hospital here," he said.
Heng said the team is set to be in operation for at least three weeks, until the government hospitals in the city are ready to run as usual.
He added that a four-wheel drive vehicle unit would be deployed to assist the injured in areas that are hard to reach.
"However, this depends on whether we have enough volunteers to run the unit," he said.
Mercy Malaysia has so far despatched two groups of volunteers to provide medical assistance in areas affected by the quake.
Due to massive air traffic at the Tribhuvan International Airport, it took the second team more than 10 hours to arrive in Nepal, as opposed to the usual five-hour flight.
From the airport, it was another five hours before the team finally arrived at the Mercy Malaysia mobile hospital.
"We have prepared for the worst. Such difficulties would never deter the spirit of our team to provide assistance to those in need," said second batch team leader Dr Jitendra Kumar Shantilal N. Tejani.