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View all search results167 psychiatric patients evacuated as haze worsens in South Kalimantan
Authorities are preparing to move patients to an off-site facility if smoke from the wildfires around the hospital could not be brought under control.
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Firefighters extinguish forest and peatland fires on Monday in Banjar regency, South Kalimantan. Toxic haze has shrouded parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for weeks as authorities struggles to contain fires that have scorched large tracts of Kalimantan and Sumatra, with the smoke drifting across the region. (AFP/Muda Sagala)
M
ore than 100 psychiatric patients in South Kalimantan have been evacuated as wildfire smoke blanketed the province, reducing visibility, causing traffic accidents and disrupting flights.
Some 167 patients at Sambang Lihum Psychiatric Hospital in Banjar regency were moved to another wing on Tuesday after a wildfire spread closer to the facility, sending thick smoke across the hospital grounds, said Yuddy Riswandhy Noora, the hospital's director.
The hospital occupies a 20-hectare site, of which about six ha are used for hospital facilities and the remainder is forested.
"Almost all of the 14 hectares of forest on the hospital grounds have been affected by wildfires in recent months, with about two ha burned on Tuesday," Yuddy said, as quoted by Kompas.com.
Yuddy said the hospital was also preparing to move patients to an off-site facility if smoke from the wildfires around the hospital could not be brought under control.
"Medical operations are continuing, but patients have made numerous complaints over the smoke," he said. The hospital has distributed masks to patients, but the masks have not been enough to shield them from the smoke, he said.
He said the local Social Affairs Agency had prepared a facility at a social rehabilitation center that could accommodate about 150 patients if the haze continues to worsen.
