BOLIVIA: Struggling psychiatric hospital becomes refuge for mudslide vicitms

Record ID: 798762

  • Title: BOLIVIA: Struggling psychiatric hospital becomes refuge for mudslide vicitms
  • Date: 10th March 2011
  • Summary: LA PAZ, BOLIVIA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PIECES OF ART COMPLETED BY BOLIVIAN ARTISTS TO RAISE MONEY FOR THE HOSPITAL
  • Embargoed: 25th March 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Bolivia, Plurinational State Of
  • Country: Bolivia
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA1L08RHP1Z0UCIB70ZHZHYF7IE
  • Story Text: La Paz's San Juan de Dios hospital has long been struggling to provide food, medicine and clothing for its 160 live-in patients and now the mental health center has become a refuge for hundreds of landslide victims forced from their homes as a massive mudslide plows through the city, leaving an ever-growing wake of destruction in its path.
    Heavy rain unleashed a river of mud down the mountainside more than a week and a half ago and has already consumed entire neighborhoods, killed dozens, and left more than 6,000 others homeless.
    The shifting earth sent the powerful Irpavi River 15 meters (50 feet) off course, putting it on a collision course with the hospital which was already in need of structural repairs.
    The city has been working to dig a reservoir to contain any runoff, dredging the river to prevent subsequent flooding in addition to the damage caused by the sliding land.
    The hospital's director, Ricardo Ramos, said they were trying to help the victims who have shown up here after losing their homes, but explained the hospital was already short on supplies and that portions of the building were at risk of collapse and had already been evacuated.
    "The river has hit the wall and has affected the hospital's perimeter and there are two wings that are really at risk that we have had to evacuate," Ramos said.
    "So, the problems facing the San Juan de Dios hospital have multiplied. One as a hospital and the other for the amount of refugees that we have outside which we have to attend to because they surely have needs," he added.
    The city has compared the catastrophe to an earthquake calling it the country's worst-ever disaster, putting the damage at some $50 million U.S. dollars.
    Thousands of victims forced from their homes, either because they were already destroyed or were in danger of collapsing have gathered in make-shift tent cities throughout the city as they try to pick up the pieces.
    Hundreds found their way here, the lucky ones with a tent to sleep in; others are forced to face the elements, all are in desperate need.
    "Nobody listens to us, sir. They haven't given us a tent," said one refugee, Justina Cejas.
    "Look at my bed. I am sleeping in the middle of a disaster," said another victim, Lucio Mamani.
    With supplies and money tight the hospital's patients set out to lend a hand, passing out food and what little provisions they have to the weary victims camping on the hospital grounds.
    The hospital's priest, Father Juan Ruiz, said the opportunity to help others had benefitted the mental health facility's patients.
    "The patients have the idea that nobody loves them, that they aren't good for anything, that they are useless. So, when they work and see the work they are doing it motivates them in a special way and they stop thinking that they are worthless," Ruiz said.
    The hospital had recently begun a campaign to bring attention to the hospital and the needs of its mostly low-income patients.
    The patients, along with 18 Bolivian artists created art pieces to sell - not only to raise money to buy food, medicine and make repairs to the building itself, but also to raise awareness to the work done here.
    "For the past several weeks the San Juan de Dios hospital has started a campaign to let the people know about its needs. The most urgent was the need to rebuild these walls that are decaying and with the disaster have finally fallen. The other urgent needs of the hospital are medications, food, clothing for the patients because 60 percent are poor and need medication and food every day," Ramos said.
    Now with hundreds camped outside and the building in a precarious state the future of the San Juan de Dios hospital has never been so uncertain.
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