Association of Medical Doctors of ASIA, founded in 1984, Consultative Status with UN ECOSOC since 1995

On 21 February, AMDA’s relief team continued going around evacuation tents in the city of Adiyaman to support quake evacuees who were in need of medical assistance. Among patients the team saw were those suffering from diabetes and other ailments. 

One patient had not been able to retrieve antihypertensive medicine from home as it was not possible for one to enter the house due to its fragility. The team was also told that it made it hard for the patient to go to a hospital because seeing the destroyed streets would make one distressed. 

Although the patient had been put on medication, the blood pressure readings remained high. Accordingly, the team procured the medicine for the patient by referring the matter to a welfare center in which Adiyaman doctors had been on standby. 

The team also revisited patients they had seen on the previous day, those of whom the team had been concerned about. As for a patient whose legs had been swollen, the condition seemed to have gotten better. The team also provided ankle-warming braces to an old woman taking shelter in a seemingly-cold tent.

After the day’s work, two of the three AMDA staff members, namely, a doctor and a coordinator, returned to Japan. Completing one’s work, the AMDA doctor said he was pleased to be able to work with local medical associations despite the damage of the quake being severe and extensive.

As of now, an AMDA nurse is still remaining in Türkiye (Turkey) to coordinate the dispatch of the second relief team from Japan.