(2 Dec 1994) Eng/Nat

Medical teams in South Africa are preparing to give aid to the survivors of the Achille Lauro disaster.

Staff in Johannesburg are about to leave for the ports of Mombasa and Djibouti where they'll meet almost 1,000 people evacuated after the fire on board the cruise ship.

In Johannesburg, today (Friday), teams of doctors and nurses are waiting to hear when they'll be sent to Mombasa and Djibouti.

They'll treat the hundreds of passengers rescued from the Achille Lauro.

At the offices of Medical Rescue International - an international travel insurance organisation - equipment, doctors and nurses are on standby to fly to Djibouti on Saturday.

MRI representative Diana Groom says her staff have spoken to relatives of most of the passengers to assess their medical needs.

SOUNDBITE:
Presently, we are receiving calls from relatives of patients on board, trying to get as much medical information as we can to pass on pre-existing medical conditions so that we can put together a really comprehensive medical kit to take up with us. We are anticipating that those people with medical problems may obviously have deteriorated during this time. Obviously they have been under a lot of stress and may have lost their various medications on board the Achille Lauro so we want to go up prepared for any eventuality.
SUPER CAPTION: Diana Groom, Medical Rescue International

MRI is preparing to fly to Djibouti some time on Saturday in order to be in place by the time the survivors of the cruise disaster arrive.

Dr Ian Cornish is medical director of Europ Assistance, which will be helping survivors in the Kenyan port of Mombasa. He says the survivors' needs are fairly basic.

SOUNDBITE:
The main problem now is not a medical problem and not people who are particularly injured or sick so we have got a logistics problem. So what we are doing is we are flying up tomorrow and in the aircraft we will have representatives of American Express who will have travellers' cheques to replace lost travellers' cheques. We have clothing in the form of tracksuits and toiletry bags because obviously these people are still in the clothes that they were in when they got off the aircraft (meaning ship). We also are taking up things like sunblock cream. People are obviously sitting in the sun which they are not used to. Our agents in Mombasa have arranged all the hotel accommodation for the passengers when they disembark in Mombasa.
SUPER CAPTION: Dr Ian Cornish, Medical Director, Europ Assistance

The survivors are currently on board a fleet of commercial vessels and U-S warships. They're expected to reach land on Sunday.

Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ] ​​
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]


You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]

свернуть