Post-Earthquake Rehabilitation

A major earthquake devastated Yushu on 14 April 2010. More than 2,200 people died and around 10,000 people were left seriously injured. Plateau Perspectives assisted with immediate medical care, and subsequently also with development of regional rehabilitation services.

Plateau Perspectives’ response consisted both of building and equipping a rehabilitation centre in Longbao – at the epicentre of the earthquake – and capacity development for professional staff and for village-based home carers. Training was provided by Plateau Perspectives therapists and medical staff to doctors and staff of the disability association in Zhiduo and Longbao. Two hundred patients were assessed and assisted as part of this rehabilitation training, including provision of over 220 wheelchairs, 121 pairs of crutches, 50 walking sticks, more than 50 adapted toilets and various other walking aids according to patients’ needs. In Longbao, there is now a well-equipped rehab centre with a physiotherapy assessment and treatment room, occupational therapy treatment room, doctor’s office, and store room for rehab aid equipment. Representatives from each village in the target area also came for training, with plans to provide support in their villages directly in patients’ homes. The best of these village trainees and of personnel from the disability association and township clinic were also given further training in order to provide a higher level of expertise in the centre itself. At the prefecture level, the Disability Association invited Plateau Perspectives to train rehabilitation workers from across the prefecture. Furniture and appropriate equipment for the rehabilitation training centre built by the government were provided, and therapists delivered a series of courses over several days for the centre’s specialist staff.