Uruguayan Sanitary Missions to assist victims of San Juan, Ambato and Managua earthquakes

Abstract

The Uruguayan Medical and Sanitation Teams’ experience with natural disasters is based on the earthquakes in San Juan (1944), Ambato (1949) and Managua (1972). A thorough description of the sanitary team, the equipment transported and the conditions found in the earthquake disaster area, where hospitals were not operating is presented. The assistance team had to settle in nearby cities where hospitals were functioning under normal conditions, with normal electricity and water supplies, enabling the first aid to be provided to the victims immediately. We stress that the experience gained in the first earthquake, in San Juan (Argentina), calls for the need to have a constant medical team, whose members would share the same therapeutic guidelines, and that would also be mainly trained formed by traumatologists –since the majority of victims would have suffered fractures.
Based on these three experiences, the Uruguayan School of Traumatology will draw out the guidelines for future missions, and conduct clinical research for to be published by Dr. José Luis Bado and others.