Cholera and Politics--November 2015

Cholera Treatment Center–Haiti (November 12, 2015)

I need to be careful here. Don’t want to offend anyone. Lots of politics involved here.  Kind of reminds me of cholera in Pestel a few years back…just different players this time.

A political disease like cholera, a pathologic political decision to deport tens of thousands of Haitian-Dominicans from the DR to squalid camps just inside Haiti, and the dysfunctional politics in Port-au-Prince, are all combining in a schizophrenic melee resulting in the deaths of innocent people.

Cholera has struck the Haitian-Dominican border camps. And not just in Anse-a-Pitres. And people are dying from a preventable and easily treated illness.  See this and this.

Rapid response teams are needed now to set up functional Cholera Treatment Centers (CTC) along the border to save lives. (Does the CTC in the picture above look state-of-the-art to you? This picture was taken this morning…how would you like to be a patient here?)

Thinking as a physician, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Dominican public health experts came five minutes across the dry Massacre River border from Pedernales to Anse-a-Pitres and assessed the situation in the camps? (The camps need to be closed.)  They could then set up a very functional CTC in Anse-a-Pitres and save the very lives of people dispossessed by their own (Dominican) government.

Smart and connected people are working on this problem right now. Will the politicians and their politics continue to get in the way? We will see.

Anse-a-Pitres Refugee Camp(Photo by John Carroll–September 15, 2015)

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org