- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Haiti - an unfiltered report | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 20 2010, 06:50 PM (891 Views) | |
| Baldo | Feb 20 2010, 06:50 PM Post #1 |
|
This is a report from a SF Physician who is in Haiti. She is Doc Hurley who is a Board-certified Internist physician and works in (Stanford/UCSF Joint Program) in epidemiology, public health and public policy. Her writings are usually way to the left politically. This report written from Haiti is not filtered. It makes you wonder if CNN is reporting the horror of what is really happening. ...We were supposed to be working today in one of the largest constantly collapsing sheet cities (I refused to flatter them with the false-advertising, put-the-best-spin-on-it-possible name of "tent city"). An open area that looks, underneath it all, like it may have originally attempted to be some sort of park - but who knows? It's like trying to imagine the shape and function of a hand from fortune teller bones tipped out of a rattled cup. There are over 2,000 people there, without one single toilet, not even an end-of-a-free-Lady Gaga concert overflowing Portapotty. Crowds of faces glance through a fences railing bars as a woman casually heats a large sizzling shallow hubcap-like metal disc full of boiling oil, preparing to cook, the whole device precariously perched over a propane cannister on top of a waist-high concrete wall as dogs, chickens and children weave and roam behind her. There was a Lombard-street-esque hill rising straight up into the sheet cities, some rare trees on either side of the road shelter prime spots on either side. 2,000 people in there. Imagine what such a thing would be like in San Franscico - Golden Gate park a sea of blue tarp, women who are being raped screaming in the night, and, after a month, disease, dehydration, and diarrhea spreading almost as fast as despair. But although we sat and stared at it, people boiling past like ants, we never made it into the sheet city. In what seems typical now to me of this type of ever-shifting (even hour-by--hour) relief work, Our organizers were told by the administrators of the area that a new direction was being taken. Efforts needed to be made for Haiti to normalize, for people to return to their lives, and no one wanted this type of sheet city more enshrined. People needed to start using existing hospitals and clinics. After looking at a situation like that, and hearing that official response, you cannot help but have an urge to guffaw in disbelief. Go back to what lives? Where? On which pile of still-falling dangerous rubble? But I have to say, brutal as it sounds, after being here only a few days, it may not be completely right, but there may be some truth to that approach for many people here. If only it could be made to work soon enough. The horrors of The Day were just too inhuman. Our gracious and lovely hostess, a principal of a school, confessed that she had not, until we arrived, returned to her seemingly intact and partially functional large home. Until we arrived, the poor woman had spent over a month in a tent (a real tent) on a patch of grass inside a gate in front of her home. She thanked us for helping her walk back inside. She said she could only have done it with all of us there for her, carrying her in with us. All I could think was, but are any of us safe? Now that we are barred from the sheet mega-city, we need another plan in only a very short time. Our organizers demonstrate yet again how gifted they are at this kind of impossibility. The problem is that we told people we would be there, including a local doctor. People will drag their sick selves, leaving precious bundles of belongings behind, to come to where they think we will be. Word here spreads faster than a tweet. But there's another gaping need. The amazing duo of Enoch and Jesse have identified a clinic that is losing all its 12 French doctors today, leaving behind 5 Haitian helpers who functioned as nurses, only 1 of whom was an LVN - it's a local clinic that has seen, with the 12 docs and 5 Haitian helpers, at least 200-300 people a day since The Day. The Haitians have been hoping and praying that somehow, some help would appear once the French doctors leave. They are committed to keeping the doors open and seeing the same already-overwhelming numbers, without docs, with only 5 people. Their plan is that they will meet as group each morning and decide how best to treat what may come in, given what they have and know. So which to choose - the clinic, or the people who we already promised we would be there? It is an agonizing kind of Sophie's choice - all of them needing all of us. We had promised before the trip, for security reasons, before we had to face this kind of need, that we would never split the team up. But we did it. Part of our group went to work with the nurses, and the rest, a larger share because the nurses already had supplies and rooms, went to throw together a site near where we'd originally planned to be...snipped http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gurley/detail?entry_id=57617&o=1&rv=1266708591111>a=commentslistpos#commentslistpos |
![]() |
|
| Lodge Pro 345 | Feb 20 2010, 07:41 PM Post #2 |
|
. I have been wondering about some of those CNN reports. . |
![]() |
|
| retiredLEO | Feb 20 2010, 08:05 PM Post #3 |
|
They need to make this Haiti relief program a success for O's sake, he wants to claim it as a success. |
![]() |
|
| kbp | Feb 20 2010, 08:23 PM Post #4 |
|
She tells of crime victims, which I'd anticipate there, and the lack of material comforts. Besides the "disease, dehydration, and diarrhea", I did not read of human injuries I expected her to tell us about. With so many dead, you'd think her story would be more than what it was. |
![]() |
|
| Sherp | Feb 21 2010, 12:20 AM Post #5 |
|
Edited by Sherp, Feb 21 2010, 12:22 AM.
|
![]() |
|
| Baldo | Feb 21 2010, 01:49 AM Post #6 |
|
I can only imagine how horrific it is. 2000 people in this one camp without any toliet? No running water. No wash capabilities. This must be repeating all over Port au Prince. |
![]() |
|
| Bill Anderson | Feb 21 2010, 08:16 AM Post #7 |
|
Let's be honest here. While I was no fan of Bush, nonetheless can you imagine the stories that would be on the news if the Republicans were in the WH right now? Granted, Haiti is not part of the USA (although our government treats it as a recalcitrant colony), but Obama promised all sorts of help. Double standard in reporting? Naw! Our media wouldn't do that.
|
![]() |
|
| kbp | Feb 21 2010, 09:18 AM Post #8 |
|
Having read of how the human waste ran down through the ditches, there being community showers and seen pictures of the tin roofs on all the huts, the tent city is not too far from just being a step down in quality of building materials, if "quality" can be used to describe it! I'm not looking to lessen the damage created by this disaster and I can understand the illness the present conditions could contribute to. With so many dead, I'd expect an 'insider's report' to tell us of all those injured. It's not like there was numerous hospitals ready to treat victims there before the mess. It sure describes the cluster f%$# of a disorganized group there to help, which makes me assume that is the rule of thumb for the majority down there. |
![]() |
|
| Baldo | Feb 22 2010, 01:36 AM Post #9 |
|
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico (Reuters) - The death toll from last month's devastating earthquake in Haiti could jump to 300,000 people, including the bodies buried under collapsed buildings in the capital, Haitian President Rene Preval said on Sunday. "You have seen the images you are familiar with the pictures. More than 200,000 bodies were collected on the streets without counting those that are still under the rubble," Preval told a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Mexico. "We might reach 300,000 people." That would make Haiti's earthquake one of the most lethal natural disasters in modern history, more than the 200,000 people killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. The cost of rebuilding the impoverished country after the 7.0-magnitude quake could be as high as $14 billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. Preval's plea for aid will be at the top of the agenda at the regional summit being held near the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen. With 250,000 houses destroyed and 1.5 million people living in tent camps made with bed sheets and plastic scraps in nearly every open space in the collapsed capital of Port-au-Prince, Preval said the most urgent need is for emergency shelter. Aid workers worry that squalid conditions in the camps, many which have no latrines or source of clean water, could lead to disease outbreaks when the rainy season begins in earnest in March...snipped http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L01P20100222 Like I thought, there would be an out-pouring of aid and grief and we would see the reporters fly in, fly out. Then it would die down. The Misery would remain. Catastrophic events are just that. The reality is that this has happened many times in our world history and societies just die out. The Haitians have to do it themselves. Edited by Baldo, Feb 22 2010, 01:42 AM.
|
![]() |
|
| darby | Feb 22 2010, 09:54 AM Post #10 |
|
The experiences of this doctor are so typical of what I've seen here in our own country when disaster strikes. The tendency of most "normal" people in times of crisis is to help each other. The problem is, they are not "allowed" to help. I've been an outsider looking in on several human tragedies, from bombings, to bridge collapses to natural disasters. The one common denominator when the government officials arrive is to keep everyone else away. I've seen numerous times people showing up in droves to help relief efforts only to be told to "go home, we'll handle it, we're the experts". Just one example. Immediately following the bombing of the Murrah Building in OKC in 1995, hundreds of office workers from surrounding buildings converged on site to begin rescuing and tending the injured. Scores of trapped and hurt people were pulled from the wreckage. About 90 minutes after the bombing an announcement that another bomb was in the building, everyone was forced back, away from the rescue effort. A perimeter was immmediately established to keep non-authorized assistance out. In the first hour over 50 survivors were rescued by "lay" people and first responders in selfless, uncoordinated efforts. After FEMA nationalized the search later in the day, only 1 survivor was rescued. The hundreds of brave, trained US&R teams and other professionals that began converging on the Murrah Building on the evening of the 19th, searched for 17 days and found no survivors. |
![]() |
|
| Baldo | Feb 23 2010, 12:54 PM Post #11 |
|
February 23, 2010 11:24 AM Homeless Haitians Denied Aid and Services PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Aftershocks continue to rattle this already fragile city, with a 4.7 magnitude tremor striking at around 1:30am this morning, followed about a half hour later by a milder quake. While there have been no immediate reports of significant damage or more deaths, the aftershocks send people streaming out of their homes and into the streets, worried about the consequences of yet another major disaster. Millions of people lost their homes in the initial earthquake on January 12th, and the Haitian government estimates that 700,000 people are now living in tents. While President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive have been vilified by many Haitians here for their lack of leadership in the weeks after the quake, Bellerive has allegedly adopted a new tactic for moving people out of the tent cities - denying aid and garbage services to the 2,500 people who are living on the grounds of his office. "They stopped all the aid from coming in," said Yonel Fivelen, who lives in a small tent here. "They want for all the people to leave here, so the family of the policemen can stay here." The police even dragged and beat a woman who was trying to clean up the area, according to numerous residents of the tent city. "I asked the police for a mask, because of the smell," said Dalida Jeanty through a translator. She asked another policeman for a mask, "but he got angry and dragged me down the stairs, ripping of my shirt." Jeanty said several of the people in the camp then intervened, helping her get away from the police. When CBS News tried to ask the policeman about the incident, he got in a car and drove away. The residents say they are being forced out, pointing to five foot tall mounds of garbage that have piled up around the area, and four portable toilets for more than 2,000 people that haven't been cleaned in weeks. But like hundreds of thousands of others here, moving from this spot is not a realistic option, because for now they have no place to go. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/23/world/worldwatch/entry6234887.shtml |
![]() |
|
| Baldo | Feb 28 2010, 02:17 PM Post #12 |
|
So my question how does the Chile Earthquake affect eventual aid to Haiti? In terms of monetary costs Chile's lost is probably greater. In terms of human costs both are equally as important. No doubt many more died in Haiti, but the amount of homeless appears just as great. It brings up a good question for us to examine. How many resoucres should be invest in any one place over another? It also brings up a question for us? What if an 8.8 hit LA? The devastation would be catastrophic. How would we react? We have created a debt structure that doesn't have any reserves, no margin of error. The question isn't will another major catastrophic hit a US Mega City, but when? |
![]() |
|
| kbp | Feb 28 2010, 10:23 PM Post #13 |
|
I still trying to figure out who is counting the bodies. |
![]() |
|
| Baldo | Nov 21 2010, 11:07 AM Post #14 |
|
Sad events are playing out in Haiti Violent cholera protests spread to Haiti's capital ORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haitians angry over the cholera epidemic ignored exhortations from health workers to stop violence that is disrupting treatment efforts, and authorities feared more unrest in the capital Friday. Violence spread into Port-au-Prince for the first time Thursday after three days of upheaval in the country's north. Protesters threw rocks at U.N. peacekeepers, attacked foreigners' cars and blocked roads with burning tires and toppled light poles. The upheaval over a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people comes just days before national elections planned for Nov. 28. U.N. officials argue that the violence is being encouraged by forces that want to disrupt the ballot, and some demonstrators Thursday threw rocks at an office of President Rene Preval's Unity party and tore down campaign posters. But the anger is fueled by suspicions that a contingent of Nepalese soldiers brought cholera with them to Haiti and spread the disease from their rural base into the Artibonite River system, where the initial outbreak was centered last month. It is a suspicion shared by some prominent global health experts. Cholera had not been recorded before in Haiti despite rampant bad sanitation and poor access to drinking water, problems that cause outbreaks of the disease in other parts of the world. Cholera is endemic to Nepal and there was an upsurge there before the Nepalese troops came to Haiti. Experts have not pinpointed the origin of Haiti's epidemic, however, and the 12,000-member U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, denies responsibility. U.N. peacekeepers have been the dominant security force in Haiti for six years, and there was resentment against them even before the cholera outbreak. Standing before the thick black smoke of blazing tires Thursday, protesters in Port-au-Prince yelled "We say no to MINUSTAH and no to cholera." Some carried signs reading "MINUSTAH and cholera are twins." The windows of several cars belonging to the United Nations and to humanitarian groups were broken. "It's not only that (the U.N. peacekeepers) have to leave but the cholera victims must get paid (damages)," said Josue Meriliez, one of the demonstrators. Haitian police fired tear gas at the protesters on the central Champ de Mars plaza, and clouds of choking irritants blew into nearby tent shelters of thousands made homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake. Protesters also threw rocks at a motorcade leaving the national palace, which fired warning shots to clear a path. It was not immediately known if President Rene Preval was in the motorcade...snipped http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101119/D9JJ23Q80.html |
![]() |
|
| Baldo | Nov 29 2010, 11:43 AM Post #15 |
|
Evidence indicates U.N. peacekeepers spread cholera in Haiti Clues point to U.N. peacekeepers http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_16666594?nclick_check=1 So sad, but it appears incompetence, laziness, bad management, and the UN brought more death to Haiti. Then they tried to cover it up. Edited by Baldo, Nov 29 2010, 11:43 AM.
|
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · LIESTOPPERS UNDERGROUND · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2







7:50 PM Jul 10