Medicine running low as Haiti battles to treat quake victims
Source: Agencies |
January 30, 2010, Saturday
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DOCTORS and aid workers say treating the tens of thousands of Haitians injured by the earthquake is taxing the country's devastated hospitals -- as well as the efforts of physicians from around the world who are providing emergency care.
Basic medical supplies such as antibiotics and painkillers are running dangerously low at some hospitals and clinics in Port-au-Prince, the capital, and in the countryside, alarming doctors who are struggling to keep up with demand.
The shortages complicate the effort to treat 200,000 people in need of post-surgery care "and an unaccounted number of people with untreated injuries," Elisabeth Byrs, of the United Nation's humanitarian coordination office said in Geneva.
Dr Nancy Fleurancois, a volunteer at a damaged hospital in the Haitian coastal town of Jacmel, told a visiting UN official on Thursday that her team was treating 500 people a day -- many for the first time since the January 12 quake -- and desperately needed antibiotics and surgical supplies.
"You see people come here and they are at death's door," said Fleurancois, a Haitian-American from Newark, Delaware. "More help is needed."
The doctor aired her concerns to Anthony Banbury, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, during his tour of Jacmel, where more than 20,000 people are homeless.
Banbury said later he would try to resolve her shortages, but noted there was a "grave need" for medicine all over Haiti. Aid workers say the need for medicine generally falls third behind water and tents for shelter from the blistering tropical sun and looming rains.
The struggle to treat people comes amid warnings of a potential public health calamity with tens of thousands of Haitians living in squalid camps where there is a big concern about sanitation due to limited water supplies, Byrs said.
"The health care system in Haiti has been terribly affected by the earthquake," said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross. "Medical staff have been killed and injured, hospitals destroyed and stocks damaged and depleted."
Marcela Sauza, the regional director of the Latin America and Caribbean office of the United Nations Population Fund, said Haiti's maternal mortality rate -- already by far the highest in the Western Hemisphere -- is expected to jump this year because more pregnant women lack adequate food and health care and are stressed by the earthquake and its aftermath.
Even as aid and emergency workers have poured in from around the world, it is easy to find aid workers struggling to keep up with demand. The UN estimates the quake injured about 200,000 people, including thousands who required amputation of damaged limbs and now must have postoperative care to prevent infection.
At the chaotic General Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince, amputees groan in pain while recovering in canvas tents in the courtyard of the damaged structure. There is a shortage of painkillers as well as crutches, wheelchairs and physical therapy equipment, said Dr Bob Norris, who leads an International Medical Corps team of physicians.
At the Bernard Mevs Hospital near the airport, Kathleen Sejour, a hospital administrator, said they were short of such basic supplies as gloves, gauze and antiseptic as well as malaria medicine and treatment for amputees.
Basic medical supplies such as antibiotics and painkillers are running dangerously low at some hospitals and clinics in Port-au-Prince, the capital, and in the countryside, alarming doctors who are struggling to keep up with demand.
The shortages complicate the effort to treat 200,000 people in need of post-surgery care "and an unaccounted number of people with untreated injuries," Elisabeth Byrs, of the United Nation's humanitarian coordination office said in Geneva.
Dr Nancy Fleurancois, a volunteer at a damaged hospital in the Haitian coastal town of Jacmel, told a visiting UN official on Thursday that her team was treating 500 people a day -- many for the first time since the January 12 quake -- and desperately needed antibiotics and surgical supplies.
"You see people come here and they are at death's door," said Fleurancois, a Haitian-American from Newark, Delaware. "More help is needed."
The doctor aired her concerns to Anthony Banbury, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, during his tour of Jacmel, where more than 20,000 people are homeless.
Banbury said later he would try to resolve her shortages, but noted there was a "grave need" for medicine all over Haiti. Aid workers say the need for medicine generally falls third behind water and tents for shelter from the blistering tropical sun and looming rains.
The struggle to treat people comes amid warnings of a potential public health calamity with tens of thousands of Haitians living in squalid camps where there is a big concern about sanitation due to limited water supplies, Byrs said.
"The health care system in Haiti has been terribly affected by the earthquake," said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross. "Medical staff have been killed and injured, hospitals destroyed and stocks damaged and depleted."
Marcela Sauza, the regional director of the Latin America and Caribbean office of the United Nations Population Fund, said Haiti's maternal mortality rate -- already by far the highest in the Western Hemisphere -- is expected to jump this year because more pregnant women lack adequate food and health care and are stressed by the earthquake and its aftermath.
Even as aid and emergency workers have poured in from around the world, it is easy to find aid workers struggling to keep up with demand. The UN estimates the quake injured about 200,000 people, including thousands who required amputation of damaged limbs and now must have postoperative care to prevent infection.
At the chaotic General Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince, amputees groan in pain while recovering in canvas tents in the courtyard of the damaged structure. There is a shortage of painkillers as well as crutches, wheelchairs and physical therapy equipment, said Dr Bob Norris, who leads an International Medical Corps team of physicians.
At the Bernard Mevs Hospital near the airport, Kathleen Sejour, a hospital administrator, said they were short of such basic supplies as gloves, gauze and antiseptic as well as malaria medicine and treatment for amputees.
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