Emergency
Photo © Basil Rolandsen (bouvetmedia.com)The Bairo Pite Clinic Emergency Room (ER) treated 2471 patients in 2009. Staffed by Timorese nurses and assisted by a a constant influx of international volunteers the emergency room is ready always. Materials contributed from around the globe make this possible. Three ambulances service all areas of East Timor to facilitate access for people of poverty.
The ER receives patients with all from minor to life threatening injuries. The situation we experienced during the unrest in 2006 was maybe the busyest ever. As Dr Dan remembers it: “Vast crowds of refugees mill about as the ambulance streaks through the wire gates. International media and ambassadors appear with suffocating bright lights. Doctors work late into the night to save the lives of the injured. This is Bairo Pite Clinic emergency room 2006. Wounds, fractures, psychosis, and all other conceivable conditions are the daily fare. Physicians from Aspen, the Australian army medical brigade, cheerfully cross the road to contribute.”