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Haiti: World Vision mobilises aid effort amidst massive devastation
14 Jan 2010
By James Addis
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A World Vision staffer helps an injured child in Haiti on 14 January.
Photo by Steve Matthews.
©2010 World Vision International |
World Vision commenced emergency relief operations in Port-au-Prince with distributions of essential medical supplies to city hospitals.
The distributions began on Wednesday, the day after the quake, and continued on Thursday, despite World Vision’s own offices suffering heavy quake damage, the worst to hit Haiti in 200 years.
World Vision’s main office building was rendered unusable, but operations continued from a second building.
World Vision Landcruisers negotiated choked and rubble-strewn city streets to bring the aid. Dead bodies were piled up on sidewalks and residents of the city chipped away at collapsed buildings with crude tools in a desperate effort to free trapped relatives and loved ones. City hillsides were turned into a sea of rubble as buildings collapsed on top of one another domino style.
The aid to hospitals included surgical gloves, syringes, antibiotics, and bandages. The supplies were intended for World Vision’s rural development programmes but were reassigned to Port-au-Prince following the quake.
At L’Hospital General in the downtown area, all patients were transferred outside the building, since most of its structures were completely destroyed and those left standing were unsafe.
Patients lay on stretchers and beds in the hospital grounds and surrounding streets--many suffering from smashed limbs, and some awaiting amputation.
Among the survivors was 18-month-old Navensky Charles who suffered a broken shoulder, leg and arm before being rescued from his collapsing home by his father, Jerome.
Hospital manager Guy La Roche said the supplies were welcome as the hospitals own stocks were destroyed in the quake.
But he added that the hospital’s activities continued to be severely restricted due to a lack of running water and electricity. He hoped the government would soon restore services. However, the government has problems of its own. Just blocks away, the presidential palace and many government buildings, including the health ministry, are in ruins.
Adding to the hospital’s woes were thousands of corpses dumped outside the overflowing city morgue next to the hospital. An excavator was scooping up the bodies and loading them into trucks. The stench wafted into the hospital grounds and surrounding streets.
Joining World Vision’s relief effort were teachers from a local American school who volunteered to clean major wounds and attend to minor abrasions under the direction of doctors.
Although none of the teachers had much medical experience, they pooled their knowledge from first-aid courses and learned from hospital medical staff.
One kindergarten teacher, Marie, who preferred her last name not be used, said although many of them had initially been squeamish about the horrific injuries they treated, they had managed to continue by praying together and with their patients.
“We would hum the Lord’s Prayer in Creole and the patients found that comforting,” she said.
World Vision’s relief efforts will continue with the airlifting of further emergency supplies from the organisation’s warehouses in Denver and Panama. The supplies will include water purification tablets, hygiene kits, and cooking sets.
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