Disaster and society: The 1985 Mexican earthquakes

37 After the first moment of confusion, more than 600 ambulances, 844 clinics or minor health centers, and 110 hospitals in the DF prepared to join the emergency. Among the hospitals, there were 31 private institutions and units from the army and PEMEX, for example. The personnel in those institutions included more than 20 000 physicians and nearly 33 000 nurses (Zeballos 1986: 144). Help from private hospitals, and enlarged turns in the hospitals in function, constituted part of the response. The IMSS reinforced the personnel in non damaged buildings. A first appraisal of damages by the Secretary of Health stated a sum of 250 M$, and the time for reconstruction was calculated to be two years (Novelo 1987: 21).

The number of available beds was increased through voluntary patient discharges, and discharging chronical or non-critical surgical patients. This resulted in enough to supply the needs without extra beds in corridors or other emergent locations. Nearly 90 percent of the people injured as a consequence of the quake demanded medical care under the first day. Of 3285 hospitalized patients, only 141 (17 percent) rested after the 1st October (Zeballos 1986: 144).

From statistical records it was possible to infer that most injured patients were adults among 15 and 64 years old, and mortality was higher among children and the elderly. Further, and in accordance with former observations, more injures happened to people being indoors. The time of the first tremor probably influenced morbidity and mortality rates: most people were not yet in schools or working places Ñplaces which resulted in ruinsÑ but in the streets or indoors Multiple traumas affected nearly half of recorded hospitalized patients, fractures to a 15 percent and contusions to some ten percent. In outpatient records contusions affected a third, wounds and multiple traumas another third, and fractures a ten percent more. Psychological traumas were another cause for seeking medical care (Sánchez-Carrillo 1989: 483ff).

On September 25, 6500 injured victims, despite destruction and losses, had got attention in hospitals (Terremotos 1986: 519).

No global information about victims in collapsed hospitals are known, only partial records. For example, 46 physicians and 297 patients died in the General Hospital. Several sources pointed out that between 500 and 1200 people died in Juˆrez Hospital (Novelo 1987: 24). Zeballos refers to official sources where it was stated that on September 30 107 persons and 245 corpses had been rescued from the rubble at the General Hospital, and 191 persons and 106 corpses at Juárez Hospital (1986: 142). 12 000 students of different