| Subject: Sickly
refugee tide swamps E Timor aid staff
The Australian 10 Dec 99
Sickly refugee tide swamps aid staff
From MICHAEL WARE in Dili
MALNOURISHED refugees returning from West
Timor, many of them suffering from debilitating diseases, such as
tuberculosis, malaria and dysentery, are overwhelming East Timor's almost
non-existent health system.
"People have been coming back from
the countryside where they hid and from camps in West Timor, and we need
to understand just how very, very sick they are," US doctor Dan
Murphy said yesterday from his clinic in Dili, where he sees 300 to 400
people daily.
"From the camps, we're seeing
unconscionable levels of tuberculosis, diarrhoea and malaria, and every
single one of these people are so weak and rundown. They're still living
in fear and their stress levels are through the roof.
"One poor kid came back, just three
years old, and he had 56 worms. They came out of every orifice, his mouth,
his anus, his nose," said Dr Murphy, who himself had to flee East
Timor when his work with the poor and his fierce outspokeness landed him
on a pro-Indonesian militia deathlist.
UN organisations and the regular swathe
of non-government relief agencies scramble to bandaid a terminal problem,
hampered by the magnitude of the disaster as well as their own slow-moving
bureaucracies.
So far, since the end of the militias'
bloody rampage following the August 30 independence ballot, 114,030
refugees have made it back from West Timor, other provinces of Indonesia,
and Australia.
Dr Murphy laments the state of these
people's health. "Women are still dying for want of a caesarian
section. And that's not a pleasant way to die: three or four days of
agonising labour to endure first."
He could not make it back to his old
clinic in Motael when he returned to East Timor on September 26 because
the Indonesian army (TNI) was there so he set up, ironically, in a TNI
building.
Now his patients come to him from
literally miles away. Some said they had walked since 2am to get there.
Dr Murphy is angry that the UN is not
doing enough about the atrocious health services: "The problem is
nothing is happening quick enough. It's all been very slow and it's almost
imperceptible, that is if it's happening at all.
"The UN people seem more interested
in getting their air-conditioned offices and smart computers organised,
and having endless meetings, than actually doing anything.
"These people are being sold
short."
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