China’s hospital ship now serving Yolanda survivors in Eastern Visayas

From the Philippine News Agency (Nov 25): China’s hospital ship now serving Yolanda survivors in Eastern Visayas

China’s only hospital ship arrived at the Leyte Gulf Sunday afternoon to extend medical assistance to survivors of super typhoon Yolanda in Eastern Visayas.

The 14-thousand tonner hospital ship, Peace Ark, set sail from East China’s Qingdao on Thursday carrying medicines, tents, commuter boats and helicopters.

The hospital ship has 106 medical personnel and equipped with two 8J heli-ambulance, two high speed boats and two low-speed utility boats.

The Chinese team offers a variety of medical services such as inpatient and outpatient treatments, emergency treatment and surgery, among others. Daily, it can accommodate some 800 patients.

“Doctors can go down and take care of the patients here. There are more than 300 beds and 100 doctors and all the advance equipment in the ship. I hope that it would be a big help,” said Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Ma Keqing who arrived here Sunday afternoon.

The ship already catered to five patients Sunday evening.

She added that their government is “ready to provide more assistance in accordance with the needs of the Philippines.”

Currently, they have provided 200,000 dollars in cash; P73 million in goods mostly tents and blankets and three medical teams stationed in Tacloban City and Abuyog town.

On Monday morning, the medical team deployed to Abuyog initially catered to at least 75 patients.

“After their medical mission in Tacloban, the medical team of the Chinese Red Cross will leave all their equipment to the Philippine Red Cross worth about 5.3 million Chinese yuan,” she disclosed.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=&sid=&nid=&rid=590443