Sunday, January 31, 2010
JAN 31: SEATTLE VOLUNTEER DOCTOR SAYS FOLLOW UP SURGERY AND CARE URGENT FOR AMPUTEES, SEATTLE TIMES
THE SEATTLE TIMES, Seattle Doctor Fears For Fate Of Haitian Amputees
JAN 31: THE CHAOS AND THE CALM_NY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHY
The United Nations began a new system of distributing food to reduce the chaos that has taken place in the past few weeks. Coupons that were distributed on Saturday could be redeemed for bags of rice at locations in Port-au-Prince. A woman was delighted to receive a 55-pound bag of rice during a United Nations food distribution at the Canapé Vert park in Port-au-Prince. Photograph by Ruth Fremson for The New York Times
A man used a broken cinder block to get a better view outside the Assembly of God church during the service.Photograph by Damon Winter for The New York Times
The NY Times captures the process of food distribution as the UN attempts to prevent food riots and insure women are getting their share. And they photograph the quiet moments as people wait in line, find time to pray and reflect.
The New York Times, full photography essay, Coupon System Under Way In Haiti
Saturday, January 30, 2010
JAN 30: "PEOPLE ARE DYING IN HAITI BECAUSE THEY CAN'T GET OUT", US SUSPENDS HAITIAN AIRLIFT IN COST DISPUTE
JAN 30, reported by the New York Times, via Common Dreams
Excerpt:
MIAMI - The United States has suspended its medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian earthquake victims until a dispute over who will pay for their care is settled, military officials said Friday.
The military flights, usually C-130s carrying Haitians with spinal cord injuries, burns and other serious wounds, ended on Wednesday after Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida formally asked the federal government to shoulder some of the cost of the care.
Hospitals in Florida have treated more than 500 earthquake victims so far, the military said, including an infant who was pulled out of the rubble with a fractured skull and ribs. Other states have taken patients, too, and those flights have been suspended as well, the officials said.
The suspension could be catastrophic for patients, said Dr. Barth A. Green, the co-founder of Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit group affiliated with the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine that had been evacuating about two dozen patients a day.
"People are dying in Haiti because they can't get out," Dr. Green said.
It was not clear on Friday who exactly was responsible for the interruption of flights, or the chain of events that led to the decision. Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Mr. Crist, said the governor's request for federal help might have caused "confusion."
"Florida stands ready to assist our neighbors in Haiti, but we need a plan of action and reimbursement for the care we are providing," Mr. Ivey said.
JAN 30: DAILY STRUGGLES_NY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHY
Residents used stones from the earthquake-damaged buildings to block the streets from drivers. At Postemarchand and Rue Lammare, a man hung the Haitian national flag with a lot of signage to warn drivers.Photograph by Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
14 powerful photographs from the streets of Port-au-Prince two weeks after the quake. Tent cities grow daily, people are sleeping outside at night, the devastation is massive and the need for food grows desperate.
The New York Times, photography essay, Daily Struggles In Haiti
Friday, January 29, 2010
JAN 29: BASIC MEDICAL SUPPLIES SUCH AS ANTIBIOTICS AND PAINKILLERS RUNNING DANGEROUSLY LOW
AP via Fort Worth Star Telegram, Medicine running out at Haiti hospitals, clinics
The article reports that while some agencies and organizations like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders are able to maintain supplies other hospitals and medical sites are almost out of basics like gauze and antiseptic. While a looming malaria problem is a concern.
JAN 29: CNN COVERS FOOD RIOTS
Related: from Democracy Now on January 22, Sister Mary Finnick who runs an aid mission called Matthew 25 House in Port-Au-Prince had this to say about the lack of adequate aid following the earthquake.
SISTER MARY FINNICK: "If we had gotten aid by even Wednesday night—what is now going to take place and what’s going to be on American television are the riots, the shooting, and that’s exciting for people to see, but it should not have happened. It didn’t have to happen. If we had gotten the supplies, people, by now, would be more than likely out of the city of Port-au-Prince. There’s plenty of places in Haiti for them to go to. We didn’t have any fuel. We can’t get them to get their cars out. They wanted to go out.
There was truly a very organized plan on the part of the Haitian people. But what you’re going to see now are the riots. When the food comes in, if you’ve been hungry for a whole week, if your child is dying of malnourishment—over and over again we said we have to have a plan. Well, disasters don’t do well with waiting for a plan. And I’m afraid what I think is going to happen is what the American people will see are undisciplined, horrible Haitian people, who are probably the best in the world with dealing with their adverse poverty. Their spirit is just fantastic. And I’m just sorry that that’s not what’s going to be seen, because nobody was here to film it. Nobody was here to watch how they organized themselves. What they’re going to see is how they are disorganized, and that’s such shame."
JAN 29: "WE TOLD HER WE WON'T LEAVE", CNN PROFILES A MEMBER FROM MEXICO'S SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAM
Hector Mendez, 46, travels from Mexico to help search for survivors of disasters around the world, including Haiti. Photo by CNN
JAN 29: THE PALM BEACH POST REPORTS ON EFFORTS BY AID ORGANIZATIONS TO HELP AMPUTEES
The Palm Beach Post News, Haiti's Biggest Loss From Quake: Thousands Of Amputees
Gaelle Eznard, 17, sits in a tent in an encampment of displaced persons set up in a park near the National Palace. She was holding a friend's baby during the earthquake when they were hit by a concrete block, killing the baby and crushing her leg. Her leg was amputated in a military hospital by a Dominican doctor. Eznard wants to be a diplomat. Photograph by Lennis Waters / Palm Beach Post
Full article here:
JAN 29
Haiti's biggest loss from quake: Thousands of amputees
By John Lantigua / Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —
She is 17 and lovely.
It is the time of life when a girl dreams of finding a boyfriend, strolling with him, dancing with him.
Instead, Gaelle Eznard lies in a small red tent at a crowded, chaotic refugee camp in the Champs de Mars, a park in this demolished capital. Her family carries her out to get sun for part of the day, then sleeps around her tent protectively at night.
On Jan. 12, Gaelle was at a friend's house when it collapsed during the magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Blocks of concrete smashed her lower body. Rescued from the rubble, she was rushed to the military hospital, where Dominican surgeons removed half of her right leg.
She is one of thousands of people who were made amputees when jagged, cascading concrete crushed their bones. Tens of thousands of people died, but it may be the number of catastrophic injuries that survivors are forced to live with that will distinguish the Haiti earthquake from other disasters.
An executive of CNE, the state construction company responsible for disposing of the dead in mass graves, told a reporter that his dump trucks also had carried numerous severed limbs.
"We have confirmed that at least 2,000 amputations have been performed since the earthquake," said Eric Doubt, executive director of Canada-based Healing Hands for Haiti. For 10 years, that organization has treated the country's disabled people.
He said that figure comes from Haitian hospitals still standing and various tent hospitals staffed by international surgeons doing emergency triage. At many of those facilities, the vast majority of operations have been amputations. Right after the quake, many were done without anesthetic. Some patients are multiple amputees, though Doubt didn't say how many.
"But that number of new amputees can go up as wounds turn gangrenous or as repairs that were made fail at a later date and it is necessary to amputate," Doubt said.
Grim prospects
Amputation can be more cataclysmic to many Haitians than it would be to individuals in more developed societies.
Dr. Colleen O'Connell, a Healing Hands board member who traveled to Haiti to treat quake victims, said at least 80 percent of Haitians rely on their physical abilities to survive. That includes men doing all sorts of labor and women walking long distances to market while balancing baskets of produce on their heads. There are few ramps for disabled people and no hydraulic stairs on overcrowded buses.
"This is a push-pull, survival-of-the-fittest kind of society," O'Connell said. "The last thing a person wants is to be is a burden on their family."
Many amputees end up on the street, selling odds and ends, settling near churches where they can beg for alms. They often lead desperate lives.
Adding a large number of amputees to a country so impoverished and underdeveloped is a cruel prospect. But some Haitians and their foreign friends are already responding. They are at least creating the hope that the newest amputees will escape the dismal fates of their predecessors.
Outside the heavily damaged headquarters of Healing Hands, overlooking the ruined capital, Haitians employed there as physical therapists and makers of prosthetic devices said they wanted to work again as soon as possible.
They said the oven for baking the plastic devices appeared to be intact, and the other supplies — including plastic that is specially colored for the Haitian population — also appeared to be undamaged. But the building was unstable and they were not allowed inside.
"There will be many more people who will need these devices," said Albert St. Thomas, 34, who makes prostheses. "Just in my neighborhood I know of one man and one child who lost arms. They will be able to come to us."
Physical therapist Jacques Charles, 28, said he is prepared to instruct victims on the exercises they will need and on how to deal with the emotional problems they will face. That includes 17-year-old girls who fear they will never dance again or have boyfriends.
"When they first arrive, often they cry," he said. "But then they see other people who have suffered the same injury, who are dealing with it, and they feel better. I try to give them good counsel. That life is not over. That it will be all right."
Lending a hand and hope
Before the earthquake, the workers said, six makers of prostheses and eight physical therapists were employed at the facility, which treats all kinds of disabled people in this nation of 10 million, not just amputees.
"Yes, we'll need many, many more experts, but we've already been contacted by about 1,000 volunteers from all over who want to come help," Healing Hands' Doubt said.
The first issue will be establishing a new workplace, if it proves impossible to use any of the current Healing Hands buildings. The University of Miami Medishare Project has offered to make room on the same site as its tent hospital near the main airport. The other key issue will be funding.
At the Medishare site, doctors already house many new amputees, including children. A girl named Christelle, 13, dressed in a baby blue hospital smock, lost her parents and older brother. She also lost her right foot just below the ankle. The doctors and nurses have become her new family.
The experts here say many adults have trouble adjusting to prostheses and often discard them after a time. Children do better. Christelle said she wants a new foot so she can someday be — what else? — a doctor.
At the teeming refugee camp in the center of the city, young Gaelle also said she wants a new plastic leg. Not far away, the big white presidential palace is in ruins, like a collapsed wedding cake, a shattered dream. But she isn't letting go of her own dream of going back to school.
"I want to be a diplomat," she said resolutely, astounding visitors to the camp.
Anyone who has been through what she has and maintained that measure of ambition and aplomb will make a magnificent diplomat, she was told.
She nodded once and then smiled.
To make donations to assist the treatment of amputees in Haiti, go to www.healinghandsforhaiti.org.
Gaelle Eznard, 17, sits in a tent in an encampment of displaced persons set up in a park near the National Palace. She was holding a friend's baby during the earthquake when they were hit by a concrete block, killing the baby and crushing her leg. Her leg was amputated in a military hospital by a Dominican doctor. Eznard wants to be a diplomat. Photograph by Lennis Waters / Palm Beach PostFull article here:
JAN 29
Haiti's biggest loss from quake: Thousands of amputees
By John Lantigua / Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —
She is 17 and lovely.
It is the time of life when a girl dreams of finding a boyfriend, strolling with him, dancing with him.
Instead, Gaelle Eznard lies in a small red tent at a crowded, chaotic refugee camp in the Champs de Mars, a park in this demolished capital. Her family carries her out to get sun for part of the day, then sleeps around her tent protectively at night.
On Jan. 12, Gaelle was at a friend's house when it collapsed during the magnitude 7.0 earthquake. Blocks of concrete smashed her lower body. Rescued from the rubble, she was rushed to the military hospital, where Dominican surgeons removed half of her right leg.
She is one of thousands of people who were made amputees when jagged, cascading concrete crushed their bones. Tens of thousands of people died, but it may be the number of catastrophic injuries that survivors are forced to live with that will distinguish the Haiti earthquake from other disasters.
An executive of CNE, the state construction company responsible for disposing of the dead in mass graves, told a reporter that his dump trucks also had carried numerous severed limbs.
"We have confirmed that at least 2,000 amputations have been performed since the earthquake," said Eric Doubt, executive director of Canada-based Healing Hands for Haiti. For 10 years, that organization has treated the country's disabled people.
He said that figure comes from Haitian hospitals still standing and various tent hospitals staffed by international surgeons doing emergency triage. At many of those facilities, the vast majority of operations have been amputations. Right after the quake, many were done without anesthetic. Some patients are multiple amputees, though Doubt didn't say how many.
"But that number of new amputees can go up as wounds turn gangrenous or as repairs that were made fail at a later date and it is necessary to amputate," Doubt said.
Grim prospects
Amputation can be more cataclysmic to many Haitians than it would be to individuals in more developed societies.
Dr. Colleen O'Connell, a Healing Hands board member who traveled to Haiti to treat quake victims, said at least 80 percent of Haitians rely on their physical abilities to survive. That includes men doing all sorts of labor and women walking long distances to market while balancing baskets of produce on their heads. There are few ramps for disabled people and no hydraulic stairs on overcrowded buses.
"This is a push-pull, survival-of-the-fittest kind of society," O'Connell said. "The last thing a person wants is to be is a burden on their family."
Many amputees end up on the street, selling odds and ends, settling near churches where they can beg for alms. They often lead desperate lives.
Adding a large number of amputees to a country so impoverished and underdeveloped is a cruel prospect. But some Haitians and their foreign friends are already responding. They are at least creating the hope that the newest amputees will escape the dismal fates of their predecessors.
Outside the heavily damaged headquarters of Healing Hands, overlooking the ruined capital, Haitians employed there as physical therapists and makers of prosthetic devices said they wanted to work again as soon as possible.
They said the oven for baking the plastic devices appeared to be intact, and the other supplies — including plastic that is specially colored for the Haitian population — also appeared to be undamaged. But the building was unstable and they were not allowed inside.
"There will be many more people who will need these devices," said Albert St. Thomas, 34, who makes prostheses. "Just in my neighborhood I know of one man and one child who lost arms. They will be able to come to us."
Physical therapist Jacques Charles, 28, said he is prepared to instruct victims on the exercises they will need and on how to deal with the emotional problems they will face. That includes 17-year-old girls who fear they will never dance again or have boyfriends.
"When they first arrive, often they cry," he said. "But then they see other people who have suffered the same injury, who are dealing with it, and they feel better. I try to give them good counsel. That life is not over. That it will be all right."
Lending a hand and hope
Before the earthquake, the workers said, six makers of prostheses and eight physical therapists were employed at the facility, which treats all kinds of disabled people in this nation of 10 million, not just amputees.
"Yes, we'll need many, many more experts, but we've already been contacted by about 1,000 volunteers from all over who want to come help," Healing Hands' Doubt said.
The first issue will be establishing a new workplace, if it proves impossible to use any of the current Healing Hands buildings. The University of Miami Medishare Project has offered to make room on the same site as its tent hospital near the main airport. The other key issue will be funding.
At the Medishare site, doctors already house many new amputees, including children. A girl named Christelle, 13, dressed in a baby blue hospital smock, lost her parents and older brother. She also lost her right foot just below the ankle. The doctors and nurses have become her new family.
The experts here say many adults have trouble adjusting to prostheses and often discard them after a time. Children do better. Christelle said she wants a new foot so she can someday be — what else? — a doctor.
At the teeming refugee camp in the center of the city, young Gaelle also said she wants a new plastic leg. Not far away, the big white presidential palace is in ruins, like a collapsed wedding cake, a shattered dream. But she isn't letting go of her own dream of going back to school.
"I want to be a diplomat," she said resolutely, astounding visitors to the camp.
Anyone who has been through what she has and maintained that measure of ambition and aplomb will make a magnificent diplomat, she was told.
She nodded once and then smiled.
To make donations to assist the treatment of amputees in Haiti, go to www.healinghandsforhaiti.org.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
JAN 28: URGENT NEED FOR PROSTHETICS AND REHAB FOR OVER 100,000 AMPUTEES, MSNBC REPORTS
Doctors at Good Samaritan Hospital in Jimani, Dominican Republic, had to amputate 4-year-old Schneily Similien’s lower leg because of injuries suffered in the Haiti earthquake. His father, Ducarmel Similien, says he will do whatever it takes to get a prosthetic leg for his boy. Photograph by Jon WarrenMSNBC, Haiti amputees face dire quest for prosthetics
Excerpt:
The rising toll has triggered a call to action for prosthetics manufacturers and suppliers and amputee advocates in the U.S., who say the incident may represent the largest-ever loss of limbs in a single natural disaster.
“We’ve seen many amputees, but nowhere near the magnitude of this,” said Ivan R. Sabel, chairman of Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics, the largest supplier in the U.S. “These folks are going to need ongoing care.”
Already, aid groups are raising money, collecting donations of used prosthetics and making plans to send teams of doctors, limb fitters and physical therapists to Haiti.
Last weekend, more than 300 cars loaded with wheelchairs, walkers, crutches and artificial limbs lined up in a parking lot at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., where organizers for the agency Physicians for Peace collected the mobility devices to be refurbished and sent to Haiti, said Ron Sconyers, the group’s president and chief executive.
JAN 28: ON THE GROUND IN PORT-AU-PRINCE
Bill Quigley from the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans reports from inside the rescue effort surrounded by "sheet cities" of the homeless. via Common Dreams, On The Ground In Port-Au-Prince
JAN 28: TEENAGE GIRL RESCUED AFTER 15 DAYS, DAILY MAIL UK REPORTS ON THE RESCUE AND THE SLOW DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD
Saved: A French search and rescue team gestures after locating Darlene from the rubble. The official search for survivors was called off days ago. Photo by ApMail Online, Teenage girl who survived on just bath water is pulled alive from Haiti rubble after FIFTEEN DAYS
JAN 28: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A HAITI TENT CITY
full article via
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
A Day In The Life Of A Haiti Tent City
By Mitchell Landsberg
Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
Morning arrives with the melody of the Haitian streets.
A rooster crows, and two street preachers stand near the gates of a new tent city. They are both women, both wearing black kerchiefs over their hair. One shouts hoarsely into a bullhorn while the other sings sweetly from a "singing bible," a book of hymns. The sounds clash and blend, grate and harmonize, and the result is, incongruously, achingly beautiful, a sort of Haitian hip-hop gospel.
It is 6:30 a.m., and the refugee settlement known as the Daihatsu camp is coming to life for another day.
"God is looking for you!" the first preacher shouts in Creole. "God needs you! . . . Give him your life! Give him your life! Because he lets you borrow it, he can take it whenever he wants!"
The other woman sings: "The world is not easy. The world is not easy. But God is with us, God gives us grace, for he is looking at you."
About 20 yards away, a group of teenage girls is in line at the one portable toilet in this camp of about 8,000 refugees from the Jan. 12 earthquake, one of about 500 such tent cities that have sprung up around the Haitian capital.
"You have to listen to them," one is telling another, nodding toward the street preachers. "You have to have faith."
That might seem hard, two weeks after the magnitude 7.0 quake shattered the world of everyone in this camp and killed at least 150,000 of their fellow Haitians, including many close relatives and friends. Life is not easy here at the Daihatsu camp, which is named for an adjoining car dealership and marches up a rocky, snake-infested hillside not far from the Port-au-Prince airport.
With the sun rising, people stir in their makeshift tents, most of them patched together out of spare linens and plastic sheets.
Louis Enord, 54, washes his face in a small plastic washbasin while still lying in bed, building up a good lather before rinsing vigorously.
"Life is not good here, but this is the only refugee camp we could come to," says Enord, whose concrete block house in the Simond neighborhood collapsed. "We have no choice. We have to live here."
Enord is an affable man who broke his leg in a car accident before the quake, costing him his job as an electric company meter reader, work he can't perform on crutches. His new dwelling is about as good as it gets here: a waterproof tarp spread over a structure made of random-length sticks. It measures about 6 feet by 8 feet, and houses his family of four -- a much better ratio of people to space than many families have.
Enord is at the very bottom of the hill. Looking up, the eye takes in a patchwork of homemade tents that are so close together as to appear to be an unbroken quilt, lightly billowing in hues of whites and blues and reds and yellows.
Since the earthquake, an estimated 500,000 people have moved into such camps in and around Port-au-Prince. About 50 of the sites were designated by the government after the disaster, but the vast majority are like Daihatsu -- spontaneously created by individuals who had no place else to stay but the streets.
In the case of Daihatsu, people noticed the empty land and began pitching their homemade shelters the night of the earthquake. There were about 500 people that first night, scattered haphazardly around the site, according to Jude Emile, a volunteer firefighter who came here after his house collapsed.
Emile helped organize some young men into a leadership committee, and has become the de facto mayor of the camp, helping to organize it into some semblance of order: creating security and cleanup details and arranging the tents into rows, more or less, with passable walkways. Volunteer security guards patrol until 3 a.m.
The organizers have divided the field into five sectors, each with its own leadership, and have even given the tents street addresses. One sector, which sits next to a government bus yard, is known as Barack Obamaville because, people say, the U.S. government provided money for the buses.
Roberty Mirese, 42, is a resident of Obamaville. She sweeps the dirt around her tent and then, for good measure, sweeps around her neighbors' tents. She is here with two of her five children; she sent the three younger ones to stay with a relative in the countryside.
The floor of her tent is swept as clean as a dirt floor can be.
"It's not bad," she says. "I'm lying in the dirt, the mosquitoes bite us all night, but we have no choice. We have to be here."
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
A Day In The Life Of A Haiti Tent City
By Mitchell Landsberg
Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
Morning arrives with the melody of the Haitian streets.
A rooster crows, and two street preachers stand near the gates of a new tent city. They are both women, both wearing black kerchiefs over their hair. One shouts hoarsely into a bullhorn while the other sings sweetly from a "singing bible," a book of hymns. The sounds clash and blend, grate and harmonize, and the result is, incongruously, achingly beautiful, a sort of Haitian hip-hop gospel.
It is 6:30 a.m., and the refugee settlement known as the Daihatsu camp is coming to life for another day.
"God is looking for you!" the first preacher shouts in Creole. "God needs you! . . . Give him your life! Give him your life! Because he lets you borrow it, he can take it whenever he wants!"
The other woman sings: "The world is not easy. The world is not easy. But God is with us, God gives us grace, for he is looking at you."
About 20 yards away, a group of teenage girls is in line at the one portable toilet in this camp of about 8,000 refugees from the Jan. 12 earthquake, one of about 500 such tent cities that have sprung up around the Haitian capital.
"You have to listen to them," one is telling another, nodding toward the street preachers. "You have to have faith."
That might seem hard, two weeks after the magnitude 7.0 quake shattered the world of everyone in this camp and killed at least 150,000 of their fellow Haitians, including many close relatives and friends. Life is not easy here at the Daihatsu camp, which is named for an adjoining car dealership and marches up a rocky, snake-infested hillside not far from the Port-au-Prince airport.
With the sun rising, people stir in their makeshift tents, most of them patched together out of spare linens and plastic sheets.
Louis Enord, 54, washes his face in a small plastic washbasin while still lying in bed, building up a good lather before rinsing vigorously.
"Life is not good here, but this is the only refugee camp we could come to," says Enord, whose concrete block house in the Simond neighborhood collapsed. "We have no choice. We have to live here."
Enord is an affable man who broke his leg in a car accident before the quake, costing him his job as an electric company meter reader, work he can't perform on crutches. His new dwelling is about as good as it gets here: a waterproof tarp spread over a structure made of random-length sticks. It measures about 6 feet by 8 feet, and houses his family of four -- a much better ratio of people to space than many families have.
Enord is at the very bottom of the hill. Looking up, the eye takes in a patchwork of homemade tents that are so close together as to appear to be an unbroken quilt, lightly billowing in hues of whites and blues and reds and yellows.
Since the earthquake, an estimated 500,000 people have moved into such camps in and around Port-au-Prince. About 50 of the sites were designated by the government after the disaster, but the vast majority are like Daihatsu -- spontaneously created by individuals who had no place else to stay but the streets.
In the case of Daihatsu, people noticed the empty land and began pitching their homemade shelters the night of the earthquake. There were about 500 people that first night, scattered haphazardly around the site, according to Jude Emile, a volunteer firefighter who came here after his house collapsed.
Emile helped organize some young men into a leadership committee, and has become the de facto mayor of the camp, helping to organize it into some semblance of order: creating security and cleanup details and arranging the tents into rows, more or less, with passable walkways. Volunteer security guards patrol until 3 a.m.
The organizers have divided the field into five sectors, each with its own leadership, and have even given the tents street addresses. One sector, which sits next to a government bus yard, is known as Barack Obamaville because, people say, the U.S. government provided money for the buses.
Roberty Mirese, 42, is a resident of Obamaville. She sweeps the dirt around her tent and then, for good measure, sweeps around her neighbors' tents. She is here with two of her five children; she sent the three younger ones to stay with a relative in the countryside.
The floor of her tent is swept as clean as a dirt floor can be.
"It's not bad," she says. "I'm lying in the dirt, the mosquitoes bite us all night, but we have no choice. We have to be here."
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
JAN 28: HAITI RECOVERS SLOWLY_NY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHY
Haitians visited their barbers, sought replacement cellphones and even picked up their dry cleaning. Photograph by Damon Winter/The New York Times
Marie-Yolette Marcel, 55, prayed in her brother's car in a refugee camp on Champs de Mars in front of the Presidential Palace. Ms. Marcel now lives in the car with her daughter. During the day, she prays with other victims of the earthquake. Photograph by Damon Winter/The New York TimesThe NY Times with a photo slideshow covering the stark contrasts of life in Port-au-Prince: a patisserie sells a birthday cake for a celebration, 16 year-old Darlene Etienne is pulled from the rubble 15 days after, a riot erupts as free radios are given away, a man gets a shape up from the barber, children play patty cake in the boredom of a tent city and people wait patiently for treatment in front of a triage center.
Haiti Recovers Slowly, Photography Essay, The New York Times
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
JAN 27: "THERE IS ONLY TODAY, AND LIVING FOR TODAY"
Medecins Sans Frontieres reports on their Haitian staff members that survived the quake.
JAN 27: PARTNERS-IN-HEALTH NURSE REPORTS FROM A MEDEVAC PLANE CARRYING CRITICALLY INJURED PATIENTS TO THE U.S.
Partners-In-Health/Stand With Haiti, A NIGHT FLIGHT OUT OF PORT-AU-PRINCE
JAN 27: LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTOGRAPHY
Flag-raising / A student raises the Haitian flag on the boys' first day back at school since the quake. In the background is Michel Vaillaud, who, with his wife, Francoise, founded the school. Photograph by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)Full photo story at LA TIMES
JAN 27: NY TIMES COVERS LIMITED AND CHAOTIC DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD AID IN HAITI
The Lede, The New York Times News Blog, Problems With Food Distribution in Haiti
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
JAN 26: AMANPOUR AND CNN ASK IF HAITI'S "GARMENT INDUSTRY" IS THE WAY TO RECOVERY
Superstar reporter Christiane Amanpour flew into Port-Au-Prince to state that Haiti's garment industry is attractive to the US because it has "a low wage workforce comparable to China's but on it's own doorstep and high-quality production say the economists." What is not covered in this clip is that she talked to Anderson Cooper following her report for AC360 saying that these workers make twice the minimum wage in Haiti. AC asked how much that is. Amanpour states $4 per day.
Does Amanpour really think that sweatshop wages are the road to recovery for this country? Does she think at all? It's very easy for people in this position in the media to say that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere but is it really that hard for them to connect the dots as to why that may be. Or is it not even a discussion as to wether people should work for four bucks a day making athletic gear for US companies and for the shelves of Wal-Mart? Is it take it or leave it for the Haitian workers at this point?
JAN 26: 2 MILLION HAITIANS NEED IMMEDIATE FOOD ASSISTANCE_NY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHY
The United Nations now estimates that 2 million Haitians need immediate food assistance. United Nations security forces tried to maintain order in a food distribution line in Port-au-Prince. Photograph by Michael Appleton for The New York TimesThe New York Times, full photography essay, Haiti Struggles With Food Distribution
JAN 26: "IT'S A MASS CASUALTY EVENT", THE IRISH TIMES WITH IN DEPTH COVERAGE ON THE WORK OF MEDICAL TEAMS
The Irish Times, Horror of Haiti
Excerpt:
“A lot of wounds are becoming infected,” warned Dr William Gregor, a specialist in emergency medicine from Los Angeles. Haiti’s tropical heat, the failure to change dressings, and poor timing means that anti-antibiotics are often ineffective.
“I saw more loss of limbs yesterday than in 15 years of emergency medicine,” Dr Gregor said. “Twenty amputations in one day, upper and lower extremities, and there are hundreds more to be done. It’s a mass casualty event.” Dr Gregor suggested that Haiti will resemble post-war countries like Liberia, which have a high percentage of amputees because of landmines.
Many of the “guillotine” amputations done in the frantic hours after the quake are now being repeated, higher up on the limb. “This island will require many thousands of prostheses, and a great deal of reconstructive surgery,” said Dr Jim Ringler, another US volunteer. “We are running by the seat of our pants, with very few X-rays. We are just extrapolating. It’s not how we usually do it.”
Excerpt:
“A lot of wounds are becoming infected,” warned Dr William Gregor, a specialist in emergency medicine from Los Angeles. Haiti’s tropical heat, the failure to change dressings, and poor timing means that anti-antibiotics are often ineffective.
“I saw more loss of limbs yesterday than in 15 years of emergency medicine,” Dr Gregor said. “Twenty amputations in one day, upper and lower extremities, and there are hundreds more to be done. It’s a mass casualty event.” Dr Gregor suggested that Haiti will resemble post-war countries like Liberia, which have a high percentage of amputees because of landmines.
Many of the “guillotine” amputations done in the frantic hours after the quake are now being repeated, higher up on the limb. “This island will require many thousands of prostheses, and a great deal of reconstructive surgery,” said Dr Jim Ringler, another US volunteer. “We are running by the seat of our pants, with very few X-rays. We are just extrapolating. It’s not how we usually do it.”
Monday, January 25, 2010
JAN 25: "MANY DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED", THIS IS OBAMA'S KATRINA SAY THREE SURGEONS FROM WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL CENTER
In the Wall Street Journal three surgeons from New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center wrote an opinion piece outlining what they have seen go horribly wrong in the response to the earthquake. Dr. Eachempati, a trauma surgeon, Dr. Lorich and Dr. Helfet, both orthopedic surgeons, provide a view from the on the ground as they struggled to save lives with little or no help from the US run operation.
full article via
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Haiti: Obama's Katrina
By Soumitra R. Eachempati, Dean Lorich and David Helfet
By Soumitra R. Eachempati, Dean Lorich and David Helfet
Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce.
Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe.
On Tuesday, Jan. 12, a major earthquake overwhelmed a country one hour south of Miami whose inhabitants include American citizens and their relatives. Thanks to the Internet, pictures of the death and destruction were familiar to the world within hours, and the need for a massive influx of relief and specialized medical care was instantaneously apparent. While particular fatalities such as head injuries or massive blood loss are rarely treatable in mass casualty situations, delayed deaths from infection may be preventable.
On Wednesday, the day after the quake, we organized a relief team in cooperation with the U.S. State Department and Partners in Health (a Boston-based humanitarian organization) to provide emergency orthopedic and surgical care. We wanted to reach the local hospitals in Haiti immediately—but were only allowed by the U.S. military controlling the local airport to land in Port-au-Prince Saturday night. We were among the first groups there.
This delay proved tragic. Upon our arrival at the Haiti Community Hospital we found scores of patients with pus dripping out of open fractures and crush injuries. Some wounds were already infested with maggots. Approximately one-third of the victims were children. Most of the patients already had life-threatening infections, and all were dehydrated. Many had been waiting in the hospital compound for days without water, antibiotics or even pain medicine. The hospital smelled of infected, rotting limbs.
Our team spent the next 60 plus hours performing a variety of operations including orthopedic repairs to broken limbs and amputations. Sadly, a limb amputation in an underdeveloped country may be a death sentence.
We tallied over 100 operations between four surgeons and three orthopedic fellows (medical doctors getting additional specialty training), and evaluated perhaps 100 more patients for surgery. In contrast, a busy night in a New York City hospital might include four or five surgeries. Hindering the effort was an absence of ventilators, anesthetic machines, and oxygen tanks. There was no blood bank or laboratory, and a dearth of surgical instruments. Due to the lack of resources, we know many patients may still succumb to infection and other postoperative complications.
The U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment. Our operation received virtually no support from any branch of the U.S. government, including the State Department. As we ran out of various supplies we had no means to acquire more. There was no way to transfer patients we were poorly equipped to manage (such as a critically ill newborn with respiratory distress) to a facility where they would get better care. We were heartbroken having to tell patients suffering incredible pain we could not perform their surgery for at least a day.
Even after hearing gunshots outside the hospital, we had no protection for ourselves or our belongings—though we observed that a Jamaican medical team came with armed guards.
All these problems stemmed from ours being an isolated operation, a feature that may work in a humanitarian medical mission but not in a disaster situation. Later, as we were leaving Haiti, we were appalled to see warehouse-size quantities of unused medicines, food and other supplies at the airport, surrounded by hundreds of U.S. and international soldiers standing around aimlessly.
With an organized central command dedicated to medical relief, we could have done much better. A reconnaissance team, managed by government or U.N. officials in conjunction with medical and logistic specialists, could have immediately come to Haiti to evaluate local facilities. Preapproved groups of experienced civilian and military medical teams could have been consolidated in the U.S. from the Pensacola, Fla., military base or other locations, to avoid the airplane traffic clutter and delays that plagued landing of people and supplies into Port-au-Prince. Targeted teams with military support could then go to adequate facilities where they could be most effective.
After the disaster, certain roads should have been secured to allow the transfer of patients or supplies. A base hospital could have been established for patients requiring specialized services (such as a neonatal ICU and neurosurgery). A specialized, postoperative care center should have been established. In our case, however, we lacked the resources to ensure that patients were receiving basic wound care, antibiotics, nutrition or hydration.
The death toll from Katrina was under 2,000 people. Deaths in Haiti as of yesterday are at least 150,000. Untold numbers are dying of untreated, preventable infections. For all the outcry about Katrina, our nation has fared no better in this latest disaster.
Dr. Eachempati is a trauma surgeon and incoming president of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. Drs. Lorich and Helfet are orthopedic surgeons. All practice at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
JAN 25: DEMOCRACY NOW UPDATE
via Democracy Now
Haitian authorities say more than 150,000 bodies have been buried in Haiti since the devastating January 12th earthquake. Haiti’s Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue suggested the death toll could rise to 300,000. Lassegue said, “Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble.” As many as 800,000 Haitians are now homeless in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Read more at Democracy Now Headlines JAN 25
Haitian authorities say more than 150,000 bodies have been buried in Haiti since the devastating January 12th earthquake. Haiti’s Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue suggested the death toll could rise to 300,000. Lassegue said, “Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble.” As many as 800,000 Haitians are now homeless in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Read more at Democracy Now Headlines JAN 25
JAN 25: PARTNERS IN HEALTH OUTLINES CALL FOR SUPPLIES, VOLUNTEERS AND SUPPORT
Visit the Partners In Health site for essential info on how to respond to their following request for medical volunteers, large scale medical supplies and aid : HOW YOU CAN HELP VOLUNTEER AND DONATE SUPPLIES
JAN 25: THE RESCUE OF WISMOND EXANTUS
Wismond Exantus, rescued by a French and Greek search team after being trapped in rubble for 11 days, is treated in a French military hospital in Port-au-Prince Photo by AP"Every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive. It was God who was tucking me away in his arms. It gave me strength."
The Independent, Haiti survivor tells his story as death toll continues to climb
JAN 25: CNN ASKS WHERE IS THE AID?
CNN re-caps how last week their chief medical correspondent visited the airport, grabbed a hand truck and picked up medical supplies himself to deliver to those trying to care for patients.
JAN 25: VIDEO_DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
watch video at:
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS / MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES, Haitian Staff Determined To Help
JAN 25: OXFAM CALL FOR INT'L COMMUNITY TO CANCEL HAITI'S DEBT
Democracy Now reports:
Oxfam Calls for International Community to Cancel Haiti’s $890 Million Debt
Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others will take part in closed-door talks today in Montreal to map out key priorities for rebuilding Haiti. Oxfam is calling on foreign ministers attending the talks to cancel Haiti’s outstanding $890 million international debt.
Oxfam Calls for International Community to Cancel Haiti’s $890 Million Debt
Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others will take part in closed-door talks today in Montreal to map out key priorities for rebuilding Haiti. Oxfam is calling on foreign ministers attending the talks to cancel Haiti’s outstanding $890 million international debt.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
JAN 24: HAITIANS LEAVE THE CAPITAL TO RETURN TO RURAL HOMES
Marguerite Dorival, 45, right, moved from Port-au-Prince along with her family after the earthquake to Cabaret. Photo by Ricardo Arduengo / APThe AP reports via MSNBC about the exodus of Haitians from Port-Au-Prince back to their country roots. The article states: the government is encouraging Haitians to undertake a sort of reverse migration back to the countryside, where grinding poverty led them to seek out a better life in urban slums in the first place.
AP, By foot and bus, Haitians return to native towns
Like most of the coverage since the earthquake this information is provided without the larger context of what may have lead to such "grinding poverty". Oxfam's site regarding fair trade has a report on how Haiti's rice growers in the countryside were devastated by US trade policies that drove them out of production. It is just one reason that lead to the country not being able to sustain itself while demonstrating in part why people left an agrarian life to try to make it in an over-crowded city.
JAN 24: "PEOPLE ARE JUST GOING TO LOSE INTEREST IN THIS AS A STORY", NY TIMES ON HAITI AND THE 24 HOUR NEWS CYCLE
Anderson Cooper of CNN in Haiti last week. Soon, he laments, “people are just going to lose interest in this as a story.” Photograph by Jonathan Torgovnik for Getty ImagesThe New York Times, Next News From Haiti: Pulling Out
JAN 24: "SEND VACCINATIONS KID", REUTERS COVERING HUGO CHAVEZ ON US RESPONSE
Reuters, Venezuela to U.S.: Send Haiti vaccines, not troops
Excerpt:
Chavez said during his weekly broadcast. "Each soldier that you send there should carry a medical kit instead of hand grenades and machine guns."
JAN 24: MSF UPDATE_A FOCUS ON POST-OP CARE
MSF.org.uk with a release today, please read:
Haiti update: More focus on post-operative care
Haiti update: More focus on post-operative care
JAN 24: JAMAICA HAS MEDICAL TEAMS IN ACTION
From JAN 24, The Gleaner, The whole nine yards - Jamaican aid workers vow to go all the way
The head of the Jamaican medical delegation discusses the pressing rehabilitation phase that is going to arise as a direct result of all the amputations that were forced to take place due to the rapid spread of infection brought on by lack of medical supplies and care in the first critical days. That is the story here twelve days after the earthquake. Because this disaster relief effort was not run correctly from day one the medical crisis has spiraled from one phase into the next about every three days. Now there is the looming prospect of people surviving these initial amputations only to die from poor post-op care. If they live they are facing a great need for rehabilitation and the proper prosthetics and training.
The head of the Jamaican medical delegation discusses the pressing rehabilitation phase that is going to arise as a direct result of all the amputations that were forced to take place due to the rapid spread of infection brought on by lack of medical supplies and care in the first critical days. That is the story here twelve days after the earthquake. Because this disaster relief effort was not run correctly from day one the medical crisis has spiraled from one phase into the next about every three days. Now there is the looming prospect of people surviving these initial amputations only to die from poor post-op care. If they live they are facing a great need for rehabilitation and the proper prosthetics and training.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
JAN 23: RESISTANCE
CNN broadcasting that a French search and rescue team just pulled a 24 year old man out. 11 days later, they're stunned, he appeared to be moving arms, legs. Today the Haitian gov't had actually declared an end to rescue operations. The man's family had been trying to get help for several days, saying they had heard tapping. A relief organization found the team from France and brought them to the site.
JAN 23: MIAMI HERALD COVERS EFFORTS OF CUBAN MEDICAL TEAMS
The Miami Herald reports that Cuba already had 344 doctors and paramedics working in Haiti before the earthquake struck. Cuba has sent a brigade of 30 more nurses and technicians to Port-Au-Prince to help. But like all the other medical teams they too are struggling to care for patients with little or no medical supplies as fears grow over a collapse of all medical assistance and under the threat of a massive outbreak of infection due to poor conditions.
Miami Herald, Cuban doctors help treat injured
Miami Herald, Cuban doctors help treat injured
Friday, January 22, 2010
JAN 22: "IT'S LIKE THE KIDS ARE FORGOTTEN" / CNN AT GENERAL HOSPITAL'S PEDIATRIC WARD
CNN's Anderson Cooper reporting on a medical team at the Port-Au-Prince General Hospital caring for children where supplies are almost non-existent and what they do have is not intended for pediatric care. As has been reported from all medical sites for over a week, there is not adequate pain medication, few antibiotics nor a way to provide sterile and stable post-op care. Ms. Dominique Toussaint, a Haitian-American nurse from Harlem, expresses that unless the situation changes the injured children are most likely going to die.
JAN 22: CANADA DEPLOYS FIELD HOSPITAL
via CTV, read full article here
Naval Task Force Cdmr. Art McDonald says with the needs still high, Canada remains focused on providing medical assistance.
"That's what we've assessed is the most immediate need," he told Canada AM Friday from aboard HMCS Athabaskan, anchored off the coast of Leogane.
"The need here is pretty significant given that aid assistance hasn't flowed in as rapidly to this region. That's why Joint Forces commanders decided to establish a CF field hospital in that area, something that we will be helping to set up over the weekend."
The military facility he refers to, dubbed 1 Field Hospital, will depart from Petawawa, Ont., Saturday to Leogane, which is near the epicentre of the Jan. 12 quake.
Up to 90 per cent of Leogane was destroyed in the initial quake, and more buildings fell when a 5.9-magnitue aftershock struck on Wednesday. About 200,000 Haitians live in the surrounding area.
The field hospital's team will include 100 doctors, surgeons, and nurses who will augment the medical care that Canadian Forces have already been trying to provide.
The hospital includes an operating room with two surgical teams, two resuscitation beds, two critical-care beds and 50 immediate- and minimum-care beds. It will be powered by its own generators, and will have laboratory and diagnostic-imaging capabilities.
Naval Task Force Cdmr. Art McDonald says with the needs still high, Canada remains focused on providing medical assistance.
"That's what we've assessed is the most immediate need," he told Canada AM Friday from aboard HMCS Athabaskan, anchored off the coast of Leogane.
"The need here is pretty significant given that aid assistance hasn't flowed in as rapidly to this region. That's why Joint Forces commanders decided to establish a CF field hospital in that area, something that we will be helping to set up over the weekend."
The military facility he refers to, dubbed 1 Field Hospital, will depart from Petawawa, Ont., Saturday to Leogane, which is near the epicentre of the Jan. 12 quake.
Up to 90 per cent of Leogane was destroyed in the initial quake, and more buildings fell when a 5.9-magnitue aftershock struck on Wednesday. About 200,000 Haitians live in the surrounding area.
The field hospital's team will include 100 doctors, surgeons, and nurses who will augment the medical care that Canadian Forces have already been trying to provide.
The hospital includes an operating room with two surgical teams, two resuscitation beds, two critical-care beds and 50 immediate- and minimum-care beds. It will be powered by its own generators, and will have laboratory and diagnostic-imaging capabilities.
JAN 22: MSF COMMENTS ON NEED FOR POST-OPERATIVE CARE
From Medecins Sans Frontieres, Surgery in Haiti remains the focus but mobile clinics and clean water expand MSF scope
Excerpt:
With more than 900 patients having passed through MSF's surgical facilities and increasing numbers of patients with renal failure receiving life-saving dialysis, there is already significant need for specialist and sometimes long-term care, such as physiotherapy and psychological support. At the same time there has been an overall expansion of surgical provision in Haiti, as other medical organisations, including the military, have stepped up their work. Aftercare will soon become very demanding and MSF is starting to organise post operative care units.
"When you have so many injured people with deep wounds, open fractures and crushed limbs, the more and the faster you can proceed, the better it is,” explained Xavier Lassalle, one of MSF's specialist medical advisors. “But providing for these surgical and medical needs will take months and usually many of these emergency surgical teams stay no more than a few weeks. Most of the wounded have infected wounds in their limbs and they will have to undergo several cleaning operations in theatre, and then often orthopaedic and reconstructive surgery. This requires post-operative care for several weeks.”
With more than 900 patients having passed through MSF's surgical facilities and increasing numbers of patients with renal failure receiving life-saving dialysis, there is already significant need for specialist and sometimes long-term care, such as physiotherapy and psychological support. At the same time there has been an overall expansion of surgical provision in Haiti, as other medical organisations, including the military, have stepped up their work. Aftercare will soon become very demanding and MSF is starting to organise post operative care units.
"When you have so many injured people with deep wounds, open fractures and crushed limbs, the more and the faster you can proceed, the better it is,” explained Xavier Lassalle, one of MSF's specialist medical advisors. “But providing for these surgical and medical needs will take months and usually many of these emergency surgical teams stay no more than a few weeks. Most of the wounded have infected wounds in their limbs and they will have to undergo several cleaning operations in theatre, and then often orthopaedic and reconstructive surgery. This requires post-operative care for several weeks.”
JAN 22: 10,000 BURIED IN ONE DAY
From the UK, Mirror News reports from the site of mass graves, Haiti earthquake: 10,000 buried in one day
JAN 22: MEDICAL CRISIS IN HAITI
The following is an article from Medscape Medical News on JAN 22:
40 HEALTH FACILITIES, 24 OPERATING THEATRES FUNCTIONING IN HAITI
The number of functioning healthcare facilities has increased to 40, and the number of field hospitals with operating theatres is now at 8 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dr. Jon Kim Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), reported during a briefing this morning.
Meanwhile, Partners in Health (PIH) reports it has established 24 operating rooms, and more than 140 surgeons, nurses, anesthetists, and other specialists are working around the clock at sites in and around Haiti.
However, just as the delivery of supplies was increasing, large aftershocks again rocked the country early this morning, partially destabilizing the docks that have only just begun to reopen in Port-au-Prince's harbor after the original 7.0-magnitude quake completely disabled it on January 12.
The primary medical problems are currently orthopedic in nature. The risk for serious wound infections is now beginning to increase, as is the threat of emerging infectious diseases.
"It is fractures, fractures, fractures," said World Health Organization (WHO) Representative Henriette Chamouillet, MD, in a videotaped message, "and that means a lot of orthopedic surgeons, and a lot, a lot of material, a lot of dressings."
The naval hospital USNS Comfort received about 240 patients in the first 36 hours in dock, said commanding officer Captain James Ware.
Médicins sans Frontièrs (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) reports that it has treated nearly 1000 patients in its surgical facilities. Physicians are seeing "increasing numbers of patients with renal failure receiving life-saving dialysis, [and] there is already a significant need for specialist and sometimes long-term care, such as physiotherapy and psychological support.... Aftercare will soon become very demanding, and MSF is starting to organize postoperative care units," MSF said in a news release.
"When you have so many injured people with deep wounds, open fractures, and crushed limbs, the more and the faster you can proceed, the better it is," explained Xavier Lassalle, one of MSF's specialist medical advisors. "But providing for these surgical and medical needs will take months, and usually many of these emergency surgical teams stay no more than a few weeks.
Dr. Lassalle continued, "Most of the wounded have infected wounds in their limbs, and they will have to undergo several cleaning operations in theatre, and then often orthopedic and reconstructive surgery. This requires postoperative care for several weeks."
The Global Health Cluster of the WHO and PAHO have identified 5 urgent health concerns:
Coordination of healthcare and ongoing needs assessment;
- Prevention and control of actual and potential infectious disease outbreaks, with ongoing assessment;
- Provision of safe water for healthcare facilities and ongoing monitoring of water quality;
- Availability of essential drugs and medical supplies; and
- Restoration of basic healthcare services to care for ongoing health issues, such as HIV, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses.
"We are coordinating an extraordinary health response, with donor countries, [nongovernmental organizations], and the [United Nations]. Done correctly, this will help Haiti save lives today and build a stronger health system for the future," the WHO said in a statement today.
Dr. Andrus reiterated these concerns, saying "there is a significant risk of infectious disease, especially water-borne diseases. We need a sustained supply of clean water.... The threat of dehydration and malnutrition [is increasing], especially in the very young, in pregnant and lactating women, and in the very old."
"It is critical to promote breast-feeding now," Dr. Andrus pointed out, particularly because clean water is in such short supply, as is infant formula.
Dr. Andrus also noted that the data show that approximately one third of women are abused, including sexually. "Women are not getting the services they need," he asserted.
Large quantities of medications, baby formula, and other relief supplies are sitting on the tarmac and in warehouses at the Port-au-Prince airport, but no one is moving it out, according to a report from CNN.
At least 72,000 people have been confirmed dead in the quake, according to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
The American Red Cross is shipping in blood donations. UNICEF and PAHO are working on sanitation and setting up and maintaining latrines.
Despite the critical healthcare needs, WHO Assistant Director General, Health Action in Crises, Eric Laroche, MD, urged caution for healthcare providers wishing to aid in the relief effort. "There has been an extraordinary response to such a small location that there is a danger of creating more chaos.... Coordinating care is our top priority," he said.
40 HEALTH FACILITIES, 24 OPERATING THEATRES FUNCTIONING IN HAITI
The number of functioning healthcare facilities has increased to 40, and the number of field hospitals with operating theatres is now at 8 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dr. Jon Kim Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), reported during a briefing this morning.
Meanwhile, Partners in Health (PIH) reports it has established 24 operating rooms, and more than 140 surgeons, nurses, anesthetists, and other specialists are working around the clock at sites in and around Haiti.
However, just as the delivery of supplies was increasing, large aftershocks again rocked the country early this morning, partially destabilizing the docks that have only just begun to reopen in Port-au-Prince's harbor after the original 7.0-magnitude quake completely disabled it on January 12.
The primary medical problems are currently orthopedic in nature. The risk for serious wound infections is now beginning to increase, as is the threat of emerging infectious diseases.
"It is fractures, fractures, fractures," said World Health Organization (WHO) Representative Henriette Chamouillet, MD, in a videotaped message, "and that means a lot of orthopedic surgeons, and a lot, a lot of material, a lot of dressings."
The naval hospital USNS Comfort received about 240 patients in the first 36 hours in dock, said commanding officer Captain James Ware.
Médicins sans Frontièrs (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) reports that it has treated nearly 1000 patients in its surgical facilities. Physicians are seeing "increasing numbers of patients with renal failure receiving life-saving dialysis, [and] there is already a significant need for specialist and sometimes long-term care, such as physiotherapy and psychological support.... Aftercare will soon become very demanding, and MSF is starting to organize postoperative care units," MSF said in a news release.
"When you have so many injured people with deep wounds, open fractures, and crushed limbs, the more and the faster you can proceed, the better it is," explained Xavier Lassalle, one of MSF's specialist medical advisors. "But providing for these surgical and medical needs will take months, and usually many of these emergency surgical teams stay no more than a few weeks.
Dr. Lassalle continued, "Most of the wounded have infected wounds in their limbs, and they will have to undergo several cleaning operations in theatre, and then often orthopedic and reconstructive surgery. This requires postoperative care for several weeks."
The Global Health Cluster of the WHO and PAHO have identified 5 urgent health concerns:
Coordination of healthcare and ongoing needs assessment;
- Prevention and control of actual and potential infectious disease outbreaks, with ongoing assessment;
- Provision of safe water for healthcare facilities and ongoing monitoring of water quality;
- Availability of essential drugs and medical supplies; and
- Restoration of basic healthcare services to care for ongoing health issues, such as HIV, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses.
"We are coordinating an extraordinary health response, with donor countries, [nongovernmental organizations], and the [United Nations]. Done correctly, this will help Haiti save lives today and build a stronger health system for the future," the WHO said in a statement today.
Dr. Andrus reiterated these concerns, saying "there is a significant risk of infectious disease, especially water-borne diseases. We need a sustained supply of clean water.... The threat of dehydration and malnutrition [is increasing], especially in the very young, in pregnant and lactating women, and in the very old."
"It is critical to promote breast-feeding now," Dr. Andrus pointed out, particularly because clean water is in such short supply, as is infant formula.
Dr. Andrus also noted that the data show that approximately one third of women are abused, including sexually. "Women are not getting the services they need," he asserted.
Large quantities of medications, baby formula, and other relief supplies are sitting on the tarmac and in warehouses at the Port-au-Prince airport, but no one is moving it out, according to a report from CNN.
At least 72,000 people have been confirmed dead in the quake, according to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
The American Red Cross is shipping in blood donations. UNICEF and PAHO are working on sanitation and setting up and maintaining latrines.
Despite the critical healthcare needs, WHO Assistant Director General, Health Action in Crises, Eric Laroche, MD, urged caution for healthcare providers wishing to aid in the relief effort. "There has been an extraordinary response to such a small location that there is a danger of creating more chaos.... Coordinating care is our top priority," he said.
JAN 22: US MEDICAL TEAMS RESPOND
Several nights ago Anderson Cooper looked into the camera on CNN and said doctors and nurses could help Haiti by getting on a plane with medical supplies and flying to DR to make the trip into Haiti's hardest hit areas. That should give an indication of how completely broken down the relief effort has been during these critical days. The anchor of a news show has to appeal for help based on what he has seen and heard from the medical teams on the ground, the ones that are trying their best with little support from any of the government led relief efforts.
Local newspapers are following the action of doctors and nurses who have been organizing and mobilizing themselves to get on the ground to help.
Delaware Online, Warm thanks, devastation greet Delaware medical team as they land in Haiti
The Detroit News, Local medical teams take needed supplies to Haiti
Local newspapers are following the action of doctors and nurses who have been organizing and mobilizing themselves to get on the ground to help.
Delaware Online, Warm thanks, devastation greet Delaware medical team as they land in Haiti
The Detroit News, Local medical teams take needed supplies to Haiti
Thursday, January 21, 2010
JAN 21: "I CALL THIS WAR SURGERY", THE GUARDIAN REPORTS FROM THE OPERATING ROOMS, DOCTOR CALLS FOR U.S. INTERVENTION TO HELP AMPUTEES
Haiti earthquake victims await treatment in a makeshift ward in Port-au-Prince. Photograph by Joe Raedle/Getty Imagesfull article via
THE GUARDIAN UK
Haiti Earthquake Creating A Generation Of Amputees, Doctors Warn
By Tom Phillips
in Port-au-Prince
When the earthquake struck Haiti last Tuesday Melene Samedi was shopping for shoes in downtown Port-au-Prince. As the ground began to shake, she froze. A piece of concrete, ripped off a building by the force of the quake, struck her leg, fracturing the bone and wrenching it through her skin. Bystanders rushed the 29-year-old to Port-au-Prince's Hôpital de l'Université but it was too late. The following day surgeons were forced to amputate, just below the knee.
"I don't have a job and I don't have the house. And now this," lamented her husband Schiller Polycarpe, 27, standing by his wife's tatty bed in an improvised ward in the hospital car park. "There is no help from the government.
As Port-au-Prince's largest hospital, the Hôpital de l'Université, or HUEH, has borne the brunt of casualties from the earthquake and doctors are struggling to cope with the seemingly endless stream of new arrivals.
More than a week after the earthquake the HUEH is at the centre of a health catastrophe that many surgeons believe will leave as many as 200,000 Haitians without at least one of their limbs. Aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières this week claimed that the last time surgeons carried out so many amputations was during the Crimean war.
"We are in big trouble," admitted Dr Philip Guilleu, a volunteer surgeon from New York, who said he had personally performed 30 amputations during the last few days. "It is overwhelming."
Even before passing through the hospital's green iron gates, it is easy to sense what lies ahead. In the street outside, hundreds of Haitians cluster around fresh-faced US soldiers clutching M16 assault rifles. The men beg for their families to be admitted to the hospital. The women clutch pieces of orange peel to their noses to mask the stench of the decomposing bodies that have been abandoned on the cracked pavement or are still buried in the rubble of surrounding buildings.
Move through the gates and the true extent of the crisis becomes clear. Hundreds of seriously injured patients and their relatives pack into the hospital's narrow car park. In the scorching midday sun, they lie on battered school desks, filthy mattresses and ageing hospital beds. Many have lost one or more limbs. Others have been badly deformed by falling rubble. Nearly all await surgery in one of HUEH's five operating theatres.
On Wednesday the queue was more than 1,000 patients long. Among them was an unidentified female patient whose lips had been almost completely shorn off by falling debris. "She's got an infection and she's got maggots in there," said Daniel Wiersma, a 24-year-old nurse from Michigan, as he peeled back her bandages.
"I call this war surgery," said Dr George Bouttin, a 73-year-old surgeon from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who estimates that 95% of those coming in with crushing injuries were having to undergo amputations, partly as a result of infections. "It is guillotine-type amputation."
When the earthquake struck Haiti last Tuesday Melene Samedi was shopping for shoes in downtown Port-au-Prince. As the ground began to shake, she froze. A piece of concrete, ripped off a building by the force of the quake, struck her leg, fracturing the bone and wrenching it through her skin. Bystanders rushed the 29-year-old to Port-au-Prince's Hôpital de l'Université but it was too late. The following day surgeons were forced to amputate, just below the knee.
"I don't have a job and I don't have the house. And now this," lamented her husband Schiller Polycarpe, 27, standing by his wife's tatty bed in an improvised ward in the hospital car park. "There is no help from the government.
As Port-au-Prince's largest hospital, the Hôpital de l'Université, or HUEH, has borne the brunt of casualties from the earthquake and doctors are struggling to cope with the seemingly endless stream of new arrivals.
More than a week after the earthquake the HUEH is at the centre of a health catastrophe that many surgeons believe will leave as many as 200,000 Haitians without at least one of their limbs. Aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières this week claimed that the last time surgeons carried out so many amputations was during the Crimean war.
"We are in big trouble," admitted Dr Philip Guilleu, a volunteer surgeon from New York, who said he had personally performed 30 amputations during the last few days. "It is overwhelming."
Even before passing through the hospital's green iron gates, it is easy to sense what lies ahead. In the street outside, hundreds of Haitians cluster around fresh-faced US soldiers clutching M16 assault rifles. The men beg for their families to be admitted to the hospital. The women clutch pieces of orange peel to their noses to mask the stench of the decomposing bodies that have been abandoned on the cracked pavement or are still buried in the rubble of surrounding buildings.
Move through the gates and the true extent of the crisis becomes clear. Hundreds of seriously injured patients and their relatives pack into the hospital's narrow car park. In the scorching midday sun, they lie on battered school desks, filthy mattresses and ageing hospital beds. Many have lost one or more limbs. Others have been badly deformed by falling rubble. Nearly all await surgery in one of HUEH's five operating theatres.
On Wednesday the queue was more than 1,000 patients long. Among them was an unidentified female patient whose lips had been almost completely shorn off by falling debris. "She's got an infection and she's got maggots in there," said Daniel Wiersma, a 24-year-old nurse from Michigan, as he peeled back her bandages.
"I call this war surgery," said Dr George Bouttin, a 73-year-old surgeon from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who estimates that 95% of those coming in with crushing injuries were having to undergo amputations, partly as a result of infections. "It is guillotine-type amputation."
Another of HUEH's emergency recruits, Jean-Paul Bonnet, an American GP, said the US government urgently needed to intervene to help Haiti's new generation of amputees. "There will have to be rehabilitation centres. We will have to train these people to walk again. We will have to train these people to survive again," he said.
"Ironically, if we can find any good out of the war in Iraq perhaps it is the advances in helping amputees … Hopefully those nine years of education will have trained us enough to help this poor country.
"Bring us the technology. Bring us the prostheses. Bring us those people who know how to train these people to function and walk again."
As if the appalling injuries on display were not enough, doctors say they are now having to contend with looting. Following Wednesday's aftershocks, which struck at around 6am, the hospital's guards fled, fearing another big earthquake. Immediately the crowds outside poured through the unguarded gates towards the main building.
"They came into our operating rooms and stole whatever they found," said Bouttin. "The oxygen tanks were gone. Everything was gone. I understand why they steal … but they steal useless things for them. I mean, what are they going to do with an oxygen tank? What are they going to do with intravenous antibiotics?"
With surgeons continuing to perform amputation upon amputation, Samedi and her family were left to reflect on their future in "section four", where the only privacy comes in the shape of a black tarpaulin draped over her bed and where the stench of putrefying flesh hangs in the air.
What would the family do now? "Now we will wait," Polycarpe, who had spent the previous eight days sleeping on the concrete floor next to his wife, said bluntly.
His father-in-law, 56-year-old Neider Samedi, was more reflective. "God gives and God takes," he said of his daughter's injuries.
And what had he said to his God since the earthquake? He shrugged. "Merci."
"Ironically, if we can find any good out of the war in Iraq perhaps it is the advances in helping amputees … Hopefully those nine years of education will have trained us enough to help this poor country.
"Bring us the technology. Bring us the prostheses. Bring us those people who know how to train these people to function and walk again."
As if the appalling injuries on display were not enough, doctors say they are now having to contend with looting. Following Wednesday's aftershocks, which struck at around 6am, the hospital's guards fled, fearing another big earthquake. Immediately the crowds outside poured through the unguarded gates towards the main building.
"They came into our operating rooms and stole whatever they found," said Bouttin. "The oxygen tanks were gone. Everything was gone. I understand why they steal … but they steal useless things for them. I mean, what are they going to do with an oxygen tank? What are they going to do with intravenous antibiotics?"
With surgeons continuing to perform amputation upon amputation, Samedi and her family were left to reflect on their future in "section four", where the only privacy comes in the shape of a black tarpaulin draped over her bed and where the stench of putrefying flesh hangs in the air.
What would the family do now? "Now we will wait," Polycarpe, who had spent the previous eight days sleeping on the concrete floor next to his wife, said bluntly.
His father-in-law, 56-year-old Neider Samedi, was more reflective. "God gives and God takes," he said of his daughter's injuries.
And what had he said to his God since the earthquake? He shrugged. "Merci."
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