Better to Light one Candle--January 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Better to Light one Candle...
See Elaine Hopkins post regarding local support of Haiti after the earthquake.
Pictured to the right is a small Haitian Hearts patient with her mom.
January 21, 2010
PEORIA -- Many people from central Illinois are involved in charities that attempt to help Haiti. Below are some accounts of what's really going on there.
The first is from Dr. John Carroll, a founder of Haitian Hearts, which arranges heart surgery for Haitians.
He writes:
1. None of what happened or is happening in Haiti is surprising to me. The courage of the Haitian people during adverse circumstances is what I am used to seeing.
2. The international community is a day late and a dollar short as usual. Haiti's government is mainly absent right now. Haiti's government has actually been absent for many years. The Haitian people have no trust in their government whatsoever. Haitian police are executing looters right now. Haitian police have told the people of Cite Soleil to kill gang members that have escaped from the prison when it fell.
Building codes, infrastructure, clean water, and all basic services needed to be in place like humans deserve before the quake. The quake would still have happened, but recovery would have been much quicker and many fewer lives lost.
3. And why is PAP so densely populated? Because people can't survive in the countryside because the trees have been cut down, deforested, because they use the trees to make charcoal to cook. But with deforestation, the erosion that follows during the rainy season makes it very difficult for Haitian farmers to plant and grow crops with their handheld hoes and sickles. And so for many years now, Haitians have moved from the countryside to live in Haiti's big cities and shantytowns (urbanization). The shantytowns, frequently named for the area in the countryside where they came from, may have hundreds of thousands of people.
Haitian farmers have been hurt by food that comes in from overseas and sold on the market for much less than the Haitian farmer can sell his grain. Haitian farmers work by hand and hoe, not big tractors. They have no good fertilizer and can't compete with the rice in their markets from Arkansas.
So if PAP, which may be able to accommodate 400,000 people, did not have 3 million people living on top of each other, there would be less chaos and less death now because the epicenter was just a few miles west of PAP. Now, people are fleeing the capital to head out to the pathetic and poor countryside. The roads are damaged even more, the villages are flattened south and west of the capital, and people are even leaving on overcrowded ferries. And we know that overcrowded Haitian ferries don't historically do well. One trip in the early '90s, I saw hundreds of bodies at the General Hospital of people that drowned on a ferry called the Neptune...several thousand people lost their lives on the Neptune, and it barely made international news.
4. The Haitian elite of course has not been interviewed by the media. They really control Haiti and are hunkered down in their big homes, surrounded by security, or have already left Haiti for New York, Montreal, Miami, etc. It used to be said that 40 influential Haitian families controlled 40% of the wealth in Haiti. What plans do Haitian elite have to rebuild Haiti? They have no plan of course. They have their textile factories, etc, which with globalization enslave the Haitian people all the more.
5. The stages of Disaster Medicine are playing out in Haiti. First, there are the acute injuries and immediate confusion. Extrication of victims is on everyone's mind. Now we are entering Stage II of infection, lack of water, new water-borne diseases, lack of security, lack of housing, new orphans, and what we all forget is the psychological trauma of surviving an earthquake while your family doesn't.
6. Maria and I have probably received or sent 400-500 emails or phone calls in the last 8 days. My patients call from Haiti or send an indirect message through a friend or send a message via the internet. Many Haitian Hearts patients are homeless and living on the street. You can listen to a voice mail I received last night from a Haitian friend living on the sidewalks begging for help. They have lost all of their medicine and all of their material goods. Of all the patients we have played a roll in bringing to the US for surgery, we have lost one 7-year-old girl who was killed instantly in her house as the quake hit. She had been operated in Saint Louis a couple of years ago.
7. Haiti's future is uncertain to say the least. It will take decades to "recover."This will be the worst natural disaster ever recorded in the Americas in my opinion. However, one silver lining is that the world, for the first time, is seeing the courage of the Haitian people.
And finally, an ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of cure
He writes:
1. None of what happened or is happening in Haiti is surprising to me. The courage of the Haitian people during adverse circumstances is what I am used to seeing.
2. The international community is a day late and a dollar short as usual. Haiti's government is mainly absent right now. Haiti's government has actually been absent for many years. The Haitian people have no trust in their government whatsoever. Haitian police are executing looters right now. Haitian police have told the people of Cite Soleil to kill gang members that have escaped from the prison when it fell.
Building codes, infrastructure, clean water, and all basic services needed to be in place like humans deserve before the quake. The quake would still have happened, but recovery would have been much quicker and many fewer lives lost.
3. And why is PAP so densely populated? Because people can't survive in the countryside because the trees have been cut down, deforested, because they use the trees to make charcoal to cook. But with deforestation, the erosion that follows during the rainy season makes it very difficult for Haitian farmers to plant and grow crops with their handheld hoes and sickles. And so for many years now, Haitians have moved from the countryside to live in Haiti's big cities and shantytowns (urbanization). The shantytowns, frequently named for the area in the countryside where they came from, may have hundreds of thousands of people.
Haitian farmers have been hurt by food that comes in from overseas and sold on the market for much less than the Haitian farmer can sell his grain. Haitian farmers work by hand and hoe, not big tractors. They have no good fertilizer and can't compete with the rice in their markets from Arkansas.
So if PAP, which may be able to accommodate 400,000 people, did not have 3 million people living on top of each other, there would be less chaos and less death now because the epicenter was just a few miles west of PAP. Now, people are fleeing the capital to head out to the pathetic and poor countryside. The roads are damaged even more, the villages are flattened south and west of the capital, and people are even leaving on overcrowded ferries. And we know that overcrowded Haitian ferries don't historically do well. One trip in the early '90s, I saw hundreds of bodies at the General Hospital of people that drowned on a ferry called the Neptune...several thousand people lost their lives on the Neptune, and it barely made international news.
4. The Haitian elite of course has not been interviewed by the media. They really control Haiti and are hunkered down in their big homes, surrounded by security, or have already left Haiti for New York, Montreal, Miami, etc. It used to be said that 40 influential Haitian families controlled 40% of the wealth in Haiti. What plans do Haitian elite have to rebuild Haiti? They have no plan of course. They have their textile factories, etc, which with globalization enslave the Haitian people all the more.
5. The stages of Disaster Medicine are playing out in Haiti. First, there are the acute injuries and immediate confusion. Extrication of victims is on everyone's mind. Now we are entering Stage II of infection, lack of water, new water-borne diseases, lack of security, lack of housing, new orphans, and what we all forget is the psychological trauma of surviving an earthquake while your family doesn't.
6. Maria and I have probably received or sent 400-500 emails or phone calls in the last 8 days. My patients call from Haiti or send an indirect message through a friend or send a message via the internet. Many Haitian Hearts patients are homeless and living on the street. You can listen to a voice mail I received last night from a Haitian friend living on the sidewalks begging for help. They have lost all of their medicine and all of their material goods. Of all the patients we have played a roll in bringing to the US for surgery, we have lost one 7-year-old girl who was killed instantly in her house as the quake hit. She had been operated in Saint Louis a couple of years ago.
7. Haiti's future is uncertain to say the least. It will take decades to "recover."This will be the worst natural disaster ever recorded in the Americas in my opinion. However, one silver lining is that the world, for the first time, is seeing the courage of the Haitian people.
And finally, an ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of cure
-- Dr. John Carroll
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