The widely spread refugee camps in the tsunami-hit province of Aceh have hampered medical teams in distributing their assistance effectively to all of them, due to limit of facilities of transport and short of personnel, an official said on Sunday.
More than a half million refugees, who were in more than 100 places, should be centered into one place in order to easily keep them in good condition, the provincial coordinator of the medical assistance to victims of tsunami in Aceh Syaiful Sitomful told Xinhua.
The best way is to put them in one center so that they could be easily offered health assistance and other help, the coordinator said.
"If they are still spread in large areas, it is difficult to reach them," he added.
He said that under one center, the environment of the camp would be maintained and managed better.
"It should be done as soon as possible," he said.
The Indonesian government has taken actions recently to put more than 100 refugee camps into 24.
By the 20th day after the catastrophe in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, hundreds of tons of medicine from Indonesia and dozens of foreign countries have been supplied through the Medan rescue center at the air force base to the main disastrous areas in Banda Aceh, the capital city of Aceh province, Sitompul said.
Some 941 medical personnel from Indonesia and dozens of other countries have assisted those victims in Aceh, he said.
The Indonesian government plans to ask foreign volunteers to pull out from Aceh after three months of the natural disaster would not hamper some 565 Indonesian medical personnel to continue their humanitarian operation there, Sitompul said.
The coordinator said that to prevent children from possible epidemic affection, the medical team had given injections of immunization to them in the camps.
Sitompul cited some possible diseases, such as respiratory disease, diarrhea, malaria, skin disease, dengue fever and also malnutrition, and currently more demand of pen (metal) to cure broken bones.
The tsunami swept part of the province of Aceh and North Sumatra on Dec. 26, totaling ruining the areas and made more than a half million survivors homeless.
Up to present, over 110,000 people have been confirmed killed.
(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2005)
