Operation Blessing Medical Team Filling in the Gap, Serving in Turkey's Quake Zone That Lost Clinics, Hospitals

HATAY, TURKEY – Recovery efforts following Turkey’s massive earthquakes are underway and each day new issues arise. One of the issues created by the widespread infrastructure damage is a great need for medical help. 

As nations worldwide send help and supplies into Turkey, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has opened his country’s borders for the first time in years so aid can reach those areas also devastated by the earthquakes.  

One of the major needs in this area is medical help. The local hospital was destroyed, and many people lost their prescriptions and medicine during the earthquake. That’s where Operation Blessing’s medical team comes in. 

Dr. Gustavo Angel with Operation Blessing’s Medical Team is providing assessments for some in this area. 

“For now, most of the people are in need of their treatments of the chronical diseases because at the moment they don’t have any clinics or any hospitals nearby, so they have to travel at least an hour and a half from this place to the nearest clinic,” Angel told CBN News.

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One 84-year-old man suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition.  His son described to CBN News what they endured when the earthquake hit.

“We try to keep him from falling down and this earthquake affected him a lot because this is the first time in a disaster like this. I took him out on my back, and he fell down and he couldn’t walk,” said earthquake survivor, Zeynel Dudakli.

Reliving that night proved emotionally overwhelming. 

The emotional aftershock is also affecting another 70-year-old survivor, who met with OB’s team. “They have lost everything right now.  So, they are living on the street, on a tent camp.  So, the weather, the fear (is) generating spasms on his muscles. So, he has like an aftershock anxiety,” Angel explained.

Ten days after Turkey’s massive earthquakes, search and rescue operations are nearly over and the time of recovery has begun. On the ground, attention is turning to the need for humanitarian aid.

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— Operation Blessing (@operationbless) February 16, 2023

Dudakli is grateful for the help. “We didn’t expect to get this much help at the earthquake. So not only these people who are helping us and from other organizations,” Dudakli said. 

To meet the need here, Operation Blessing is working to expand its medical outreach. 

“Right now, Operation Blessing is trying to improve the health of the situation over here.  We’re trying to give like a mobile clinic from this area so we can go basic places or at least the people nearby can approach to us.  We can help them because we know they are in need,” Angel said.

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