French volunteers set up a field hospital near a devastated town

“I’m three months pregnant.” Since the earthquake, Bésimè, three months pregnant, no longer felt her baby. With this field hospital, installed next to the totally devastated town of Golbasi, set up by French humanitarian workers, she was able to be taken care of. “Before the earthquake, before I fell asleep, he was moving. I was scared. The first thing I thought of were my two children. I screamed, I ran towards them. For my baby, there, they did the ultrasound. They heard his heart. I was like, ‘Phew, honey, that’s good!'”

Bésimè says she is reassured today for her and her future child. “My God gave it to me, he could have taken it away from me.“This Turkish woman had first tried to go to the city hospital. But it has not been working since the earthquake. There is no more water, the sterilization of medical equipment is now impossible.

The risk for pregnant women

After a natural disaster, midwife Emilie Sauget, a French volunteer, says that stress and shock can speed up deliveries or complicate pregnancies. “If a trauma like that is enough to make a woman who is not pregnant bleed, we can imagine that it can cause pregnancy trauma or worsen pathologies. When patients come to be reassured, I don’t hesitate. , I put them in the ultrasound room and the first thing I look at is cardiac activity. We cut to the chase.”

“We don’t need to speak the same language to reassure the patient. Often they cry with joy and are extremely happy.”

Emilie Sauget, volunteer French midwife

at franceinfo

This field hospital was hastily erected on 1,000 square meters. This medical center is equipped with an operating room, an emergency service, and even a maternity ward. He must stay there until the city hospital can operate again.

Karine Roussel is the childcare nurse. She cares for women who have recently had babies and are worried about their infants. “These children mostly live in tents, they have respiratory problems, dermatological problems and above all hypothermia. That’s a big concern. So it’s very important to be able to bring them treatments, to give them warm clothes and to reassure them as best as possible by calling them back.”

The two French caregivers are very moved. For the first time, they were allowed to leave the hospital, and discovered the daily life of these families, often outside, in the cold, in a devastated city.