Japan medics bring high-tech fixes to disaster zones

MANILA, Philippines - Japanese medics working to help typhoon victims in the Visayas have deployed wireless mobile X-ray kits using tablet computers, a world first in a disaster zone, a team spokesman said yesterday.

The technology, which was developed after the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, allows doctors to take a look inside patients instantly, and even lets them enlarge the image with familiar iPad gestures.

Joji Tomioka, coordinator of the Japan Medical Team for Disaster Relief, said the system had been created in response to what doctors needed in the aftermath of the Japanese disaster.

“This is the first time that we are deploying it in a disaster situation,” Tomioka told AFP at a modern medical tent clinic put up by the Japanese government to help victims of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), which crashed through the Visayas.

At the partly air-conditioned clinic in the ruined city of Tacloban in Leyte, a radiologist placed a camera on the chest of 72-year-old Carlos Llosa as he sat in his wheelchair.

The X-ray image was instantaneously transmitted through a wireless router to an iPad and to a nearby laptop.

With a thumb and a finger, the doctor was able to zoom in for a more detailed view of the problem area.

“It looks like he has tuberculosis,” Tomioka said after looking at the image as the patient was wheeled out.

Japan’s 26-strong medical team includes doctors, nurses, pharmacists, cardiologists and medical technicians. The outfit is able to provide medicine and carry out minor surgery.

Tomioka said Japanese medical experts are seeing about 200 patients a day as part of a large international aid effort to reach the estimated 13 million people affected by one of the most powerful storms ever recorded.

Israeli field hospital

Meanwhile, Israeli doctors are working to restore the sight of a 70-year-old man whose eyes were hit with a nail at the height of the typhoon.

Israeli doctors have set up a field hospital in Bogo City in Cebu. Medical personnel and doctors of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Hospital in Cebu City are assisting them.

The case will be the first ophthalmologic case for Operation Islands of Hope, the Israeli Defense Force’s codename for their relief efforts in Bogo City.

The Israeli embassy said an advanced multi-department medical facility, equipped with tons of humanitarian and medical supplies, would provide medical care for disaster casualties.

The $4-million medical facility consists of a children’s department, an obstetrics department, an ambulatory care department and a general ward. –Pia Lee-Brago, Jose Rodel Clapano, AP