March 2005

Disaster team returns from Banda Aceh

Premier Steve Bracks welcomed home the team of Victorian health and medical experts after a two-week rescue mission in Indonesia’s tsunami-hit Banda Aceh province.

The Premier, with Acting Health Minister Gavin Jennings, joined family and friends to meet the 24-member team at Melbourne Airport.

‘To say their efforts were exceptional would be an understatement,’ Mr Bracks said.

‘They had to work in very challenging conditions at Banda Aceh’s general hospital, which was covered with mud and without running water or diagnostic equipment when they arrived.

‘Now, the hospital is undertaking surgery and local medical personnel are returning to work, albeit in poorly-equipped conditions.’

Mr Bracks said the team, led by Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr John Carnie, was the first Victorian-led team despatched to the region as part of the Australian Government Overseas Disaster Assistance Response Plan.

The team of surgeons, anaesthetists, environmental health staff, nurses, doctors and other health professionals included a Victoria Police logistics expert and three health staff from the Northern Territory.

Acting Health Minister Gavin Jennings said the Victorian team helped rebuild hospital services, from diagnostics to operating theatres, and undertook public health surveillance.

‘They hit the ground running to face very challenging and changing tasks.

‘It required a great deal of initiative and skill to get such good results so quickly.’

The Victorian team, selected from 1,000 health and medical volunteers, had to take its own equipment and supplies—everything to fully sustain them during their two-week tour of duty.

Other team members were Dandenong Hospital orthopaedic surgeon Amir Razif, Southern Health general surgeon Bruce Waxman, doctor anaesthetists John Copeland (Peninsula Health) and Robert Ray (Ballarat Health Services), environmental health officers Robert Handby (Moyne Shire) and Rodney Dedman (Department of Infrastructure), nurses Nicky Nixon (Peter MacCallum Hospital) and Lana Tutin (Southern Health), senior nurse Alison McMillan (Department of Human Services), pathology technicians Geoff Hogg (Microbiological Diagnostic Unit, Melbourne University) and Norbert Ryan, lab worker Kay Withnall, paramedics Gary Robertson and Elizabeth Punton, public health nurse Anne Murphy (Department of Human Services), nurse Claire Boardman (Melbourne Health), Northern Territory nurses Rhonda Golsby-Smith and Bernard Egan, public health doctors Graham Tallis (DHS) and Peter Lewis (Cabrini Hospital), Barwon Health infectious disease doctor Eugene Athan and Victor Velthuis from Victoria Police.