The 88 flood .. 2

Although the bridge was sealed and reopen, all of the staff physician/surgeon were still able to get to work…

The newly appointed minister of health had visited the south and came to our hospital. Lem had even shake his hand… He is one of the public health expect – most of us had bought his book during our statistic class. He had bought some news – intake every patient we could and unless necessary , do not transfer case, the 4 medical centers in Kaohsiung were packed with patients. The Kaohsiung county was badly hit at that time – a village was buried under a debris flow(massive land slide – mud flow like lava …) rumors said thousand were buried under. The minister had promised us that the medical fee would be paid under special scheme. We do not have to worry about hitting over the budget…a good news for the hospital.

The ED was crowded since that day , daily patient rose from 40 to 100 /day. Beds were always tight and patient waiting in ED become more. The key problem was the transport. The road connecting to the Dong Gang town was cut off by the flood. My ex hospital is one of the major regional hospital around our region. The local peoples who frequently travel there have to detour and spent more than 30 mins on the journey. These peoples had sought medical treatment to our hospital and our loading had doubled.

Well, the hospital evaluation was 4 days later after the flood. Nothing much we can do to help, as manpower could barely cover the hospital daily activities…even though the flood had heavily hit our area but the hospital evaluation committee had informed us that the evaluation would proceed as usual….a good and bad news…