JAKARTA — The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemenkes RI) entrusted Dompet Dhuafa to assign a professional medical team for the Türkiye earthquake response. Dompet Dhuafa prepared 2 volunteer doctors of Emergency Medical Team (EMT) to help handle the earthquake victims.
The two doctors of Dompet Dhuafa are dr. Zainab Aqila and dr. Rosmalia. Both of them are members of the Dompet Dhuafa Respon Darurat Kesehatan or RDK (Health Emergency Response) team and have long served in the humanitarian world with the Disaster Management Center (DMC) Dompet Dhuafa.
Meanwhile, EMT is an emergency medical team that has been validated by the Indonesian Ministry of Health as a team of volunteers for handling health issues. Aqila and Rosmalia are members of EMT team in Türkiye consisting of 7 general practitioners, 5 surgeons, and 4 orthopedic specialists.
Director of Communication & Technology of Dompet Dhuafa, Prima Hadi Putra said Dompet Dhuafa continued to coordinate with the government and related parties. This includes coordinating with partner agencies that are already on site.
“Until now, Dompet Dhuafa continues to coordinate with the government’s institutions (Kemenkes and BNPB),” he said, on Wednesday (8/2/2023) in Jakarta.
For dr. Rosmalia, this task is a very noble task. According to her, when she and her team arrived there, they would carry out the mapping of the surrounding affected areas. She and her team also continued to follow the instructions and coordination of the two governments (Indonesia and Türkiye).
“We will be doing medical action in Türkiye. Our plan is to build a field hospital, but there is no exact location yet,” she continued.
In addition to Türkiye President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a three-month emergency response period in the 10 provinces which were hit the hardest by the earthquake, Dompet Dhuafa has sent advance teams to conduct assessments and mapping of fields and evacuation points.
The local SAR-Evacuation teams still kept searching for casualties in southern Türkiye and northern Syria after the two major earthquakes on the day of the incident.
Survivors who temporarily evacuated to the ruins of the building also participated in the search for the casualties of the wreckage using pickaxes and crowbars. Organisasi Kesehatan Dunia (WHO) warned the number of victims may have increased dramatically as rescuers found more casualties. More than 23 million people are potentially victims of the impact of the disaster.
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Due to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Türkiye and Syria on Monday (6/2/2023), more than 7,800 people died, but there were warnings that the number of deaths may have continued to soar. DMC Dompet Dhuafa invites the entire society to participate in easing the burden on survivors by donating through https://digital.dompetdhuafa.org/donasi/gempaturki. (Dompet Dhuafa/Muthohar)