Four bags of IV fluid hang from the ceiling of a McDonald’s converted into a clinic following the two earthquakes in Venezuela, where thousands are flocking to makeshift health centres in the disaster’s epicentre.The double earthquake, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude, struck La Guaira state, which lacks the capacity for mass hospital care after widespread destruction, scores of collapsed buildings and more than 2,900 deaths.A McDonald’s restaurant in the hard-hit Caraballeda area is receiving dozens of people with “hypertensive crises, anxiety attacks, and diarrheal symptoms,” said Karlys Figueroa, a 33-year-old surgeon and volunteer in disaster relief efforts.The facility has become one of the makeshift field hospitals, with a triage area, a pharmacy, a storage area, and spaces for psychological and veterinary care. More than 30 doctors like Figueroa are treating the victims there.Nearly 4,000 patients have been treated at another makeshift health centre set up inside a bus terminal in Catia La Mar.The first victims were taken to just two hospitals, which were overwhelmed within hours after one of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters. “It was horrible, dead bodies in the street, the morgue couldn’t keep up, the dead were out in the street, the decomposition,” said Maria Jose Pino, an obstetrician-gynecologist who works at the health centre in the station.Pino also survived the earthquake. She said that a seismic alert on her cell phone saved her life by allowing her to get to the exit of her home. With an injured leg and no break, she has been attending to patients streaming in since the beginning of the disaster response.(This is an AFP story)
