Winnipeg doctor and Red Cross team safe in Nepal after new quake
Dhunche was home to the district's only hospital and an estimated 2,500 population prior to the earthquake
There are fresh fears and feelings of insecurity for humanitarian aid workers on the ground in Nepal – including a Manitoba doctor working with the Canadian Red Cross – as a new earthquake shook the country killing dozens of people.
Doug Maguire, a Manitoba anesthesiologist who has been in Nepal for the past two weeks, told CBC News Monday that conditions had been slowly improving prior to Tuesday's tremors.
Tuesday's 7.3 magnitude earthquake was the second major quake to shake Nepal in 18 days.
The original quake on April 25 left more than 8,000 dead and a shell of the former country.
Tuesday, Maguire said, brought a large shroud of uncertainty, "We're ready for a surge if that happens tomorrow. When daylight comes and transportation routes open and we get further injuries, we're definitely prepared."
The field hospital in Dhunche, Nepal consists of a series of tents set up on the foundation where a former hospital stood just weeks ago. It was in the process of shifting its purpose from treating earthquake-related injuries to replacing the services that would have formerly been supplied by the hospital, such as maternity services.
This week, the hospital saw its first birth.
First baby born in the Red Cross field hospital in Dhunche, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Nepal?src=hash">#Nepal</a>: <a href="http://t.co/XXUUF8mTlO">pic.twitter.com/XXUUF8mTlO</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/elsharkawi">@elsharkawi</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NepalEarthquake?src=hash">#NepalEarthquake</a>
—@redcrosscanada"Things were almost getting routine. We would have a little shake almost every day. Typically at 3 a.m. we'd be awoken with a very brief aftershock. And today at noon, as we were seated, we had a little shake and to our surprise it continued and continued and continued," Maguire told CBC's Radio Noon Tuesday.
Maguire said over the tremors, he could hear the wailing of people in the nearby town and the barking dogs and it brought new erupting clouds of dust.
"That was a harsh reminder that we are in an earthquake zone and that while we were very safe and secure where we were, we were surrounded by people whose homes were, once again, being destroyed and are threatened," he said.
Maguire's information was limited but he said he'd heard reports that the Red Cross teams working in more remote mobile clinics experienced more problems with rock slides. He said while the team he was with of 17 Canadians was safe at the Dhunche site, he heard nine Canadians elsewhere in the country were taken from their site by helicopter.
So far, the Dhunche field hospital has not seen any spike in injuries and is continuing to serve the baseline hospital needs of the community.
"We know we're in a safe place, we're not going to be venturing out of it," Maguire said, explaining that the group will likely not be working in remote mobile clinics for the foreseeable future.
"The biggest challenge is what's going to happen next. You really don't know from day to day. With the road opening, there could be an influx of patients seeking care, or with the arrival of monsoons there's going to be a new set of medical issues. So, predicting the future is difficult everywhere but it's particularly difficult in a disaster situation."
All relief donations made to the Canadian Red Cross before May 25 will be matched by the federal government.
Find out more at RedCross.ca.