Statement of Chief Doctor Yiyit’s Earthquake Survivor: “We Have Patients in Intensive Care”

While major destruction occurred in 10 provinces after the earthquakes in the center of Kahramanmaraş, work continues in the region. While the treatment of many injured civilians who reached Istanbul from the earthquake zone continued at Başakşehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital, the chief physician of the city hospital, Prof. Dr. Nurettin Yiyit coordinated information about the patients and their treatment processes. Earthquake survivors also told of the frightening moments they experienced in their sickbed. The treatment of father Hacı Bayram Köroğlu and his son Ömer Efe Köroğlu, who were among the patients caught by an earthquake in their home in Malatya and pulled from the rubble, continues. Father Köroğlu, who was taken to the city hospital after the earthquake, told what happened during the earthquake. Yiyit said, “We went to an organization that can handle it no matter how many patients we have. We have a study that will predict how many patients will come and increase our capacity accordingly. There are patients who come in large groups; Patients are arriving in our jet and air ambulances. We accept this patient from the emergency department and schedule hospitalizations in the service and intensive care units according to the severity of the illness. We can unload some of them in a very short time. Or there is a group that we can remove from the emergency room with minor interventions,” he says.

‘We have more than four hundred patient requests’

Yiyit said, “We have a patient request of more than four hundred,” Yiyit said, “As Çam and Sakura City Hospital, we have a patient request of more than four hundred so far, and this actually shows that; The number is growing exponentially every day. We see that today we have accepted more than the day before On the other hand if we think about Istanbul in general when the patients are transferred their triage is done before they reach the airport and the patients are distributed among the hospitals according to their weight status. There is a distribution according to the weight of the patients. As Çam and Sakura City Hospital, we try to recruit more serious patients who need intensive care and need major surgery. We have a team of doctors from all branches important to manage the medical processes of our patients.There is a team that covers cardiovascular, orthopedic, plastic surgery, hyperbaric oxygen therapy specia list, as well as critical care specialist, general surgeon, nephrology teacher. Because the most feared picture in the loss of these patients is the crush syndrome. Since this is a kidney failure process, a team of psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers regularly evaluate our patients, and we walk that path in accordance with their plans, and there is also a humanitarian aspect to managing the psychological side of this work.

Yiyit said all the needs of the earthquake victims have been met and said, “We are delivering all our patients’ needs from cleaning products, pajamas, slippers, toothpaste to shampoo as soon as they arrive. We fill the shortcomings in this process, on the other hand, if there is no accommodation option, if there is no place to stay when discharged, we organize it. If the supervisor does not have a place to stay, we will also organize one. We don’t necessarily want them to be out in the open. Patients who don’t have a relative or identity in any other issue, we certainly have an area and a place in the ED regarding this issue. From the moment the patients are admitted to hospital, there is a team that tries to identify and reach their relatives.” Yiyit continued his explanation and said, “Our patients who came after the first acute period started to become ward patients, but we still have intensive care patients. It began to decrease proportionally, not like the first days. Strict follow-up of the operations is done and this problem is followed up regularly so that it does not cause crush syndrome i.e. there is no problem with the kidney. We’re hopeful in the current process, frankly I don’t expect a huge loss in our patients reaching the hospital because the process is well managed. We have a very serious social group that follows all needs, we have a group of social workers, in addition to our hospital institution, our state district governors also have structures in this regard, and they support this process in the background.

“We have a mother who had IVF and gave birth here”

Yiyit stated that he had patients who gave birth in the hospital and said, “Patients who are hospitalized are now mostly trauma patients, but mostly limb injuries. In fact, the patients with high loss potential were those who reached the hospitals in the first 1-2 days of the earthquake. We have a few births every day, that makes us happy; many of our mothers both came out of the wreckage and somehow made it here. Almost every day we have 1-2 deliveries. It is another happiness for us, let me even tell you that among them there are mothers whose birth we are waiting for. Even their follow up continues in the next few days, looks like we will have some new baby news, we have a mom who had an in vitro fertilization and gave birth here. We have pediatric patients, thank God, they were very resistant. Naturally, this strong state of our children makes us very happy. If we look at the hospital processes, most of them are in good shape and well managed. A very serious health worker went to the earthquake zone in our areas, of course it is important that this is organized, organized and from one source. Now some of our employees will leave here because they get tired on the spot. As Istanbul, we have a very serious bed capacity.