Bill Clinton is on the ground in Haiti with Chelsea touring the rubble. I'm elated the former president was able to get permission from the Defense Department to fly in. It's no small feat, I'm telling you. Because apparently not everyone can.
Take Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the highly respected international medical humanitarian organization. You know, the one Sandra Bullock gave $1 million this week before she won the Golden Globe? They've been in Haiti for years. They have hundreds of medical staff in place, and are working in five hospitals in Port-au-Prince. They know the country. They're experts in delivering medical aid. These are the people you want on the ground after a killer earthquake? Am I right?
Then why was an MSF cargo plane carrying, among other badly needed supplies, an inflatable surgical hospital, not allowed to land in Port-au-Prince on Saturday and re-routed to the Dominican Republic? Despite assurances from the United Nations and the Defense Department that its planes would be allowed in?
If this is an air traffic control problem, they need to fix it now. Maybe Bill could help?
The inflatable hospital included two operating theaters, an intensive care unit, 100 beds, an emergency room and equipment for sterilizing material. The supplies had to be sent by truck, so the hospital didn't arrive in Haiti until a day later.
To be fair, a plane carrying supplies for the other half of the field hospital did arrive in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. But for a while even that looked sketchy. And as Isabelle Jeanson, an MSF Emergency Communications Officer wrote in an email from Haiti on Sunday: "MSF is still concerned that delivery of vital supplies is being delayed."
As the crisis in Haiti drags on survivors are dying. Even if they're rescued, they're slowly and painfully dying from their wounds because they can't get into surgery quickly enough. And they can't get into surgery because the hospitals have collapsed and the makeshift ones aren't equipped to do surgery. That is, except for the Israelis. They had a modern field hospital up and running in seconds. But they can't treat 2 million people.
The MSF plane that was dispatched to the Dominican Republic was carrying medical supplies for Choscal hospital in Cite Soleil, which had barely a 24-hour supply left for the 500 patients waiting to have surgery. Even under horrific conditions, MSF teams performed more than 90 operations in the day after their operating theatre was functional.
Like other aid groups in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders is hurting too. Some of their Haitian staff members died. Some they haven't been able to reach.
And then there is the frustration of trying to help. Of not having the right equipment. The heartache of watching people die when you know you could have saved them.
As Jeanson wrote in her email on Sunday: "Patients who were not critical only three days ago are now in critical phases. This means that people will die from preventable infections. It's horrible. It's really so terrible that people are begging for help and we can't help them all to save their lives!"
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Cults, sects are indeed an immediate priority after any disaster, they know no better opportunity to subdue injured and weakened individuals...
cf. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/updates-on-the-crisis-in-haiti/
"That's extremely unfortunate, and it certainly is not what we want to see. And clearly, we wanted that field hospital on the tarmac," said Keen, adding, "This has happened a number of times."
important to remember that this is an airport with one runway that sustained damage and has little ramp space. In response to suggestions the U.S. military is ill-prepared to handle this situation, there are very few organizations capable of conducting a logistical operation in response to a natural disaster of this magnitude. The USNS COMFORT just arrived with a medical staff (upped to 1,000 Sailors), 11 operating rooms and 1,000 patient beds. It is one of the largest trauma centers in the United States. The USS Carl Vinson has operating rooms aboard (Navy surgeons with civilian surgeons recently saved a 12 year-old girl by removing a chunk of concrete from her brain). The U.S. military works hand-in-glove with volunteers, first responders and NGOs to mitigate loss of life and suffering from natural disasters. This is a difficult operating environment for everyone.
Explain to me why first Hillary Clinton with company, and thereafter Bill Clinton with entourage had no problem landing in Haiti, but a plane carrying an inflatable hospital could not? What's more important?
About your "solution", the French obviously don't have a carrier nearby.
This country has to be rebuilt from the very bottom up.
MSF is an excellent NGO , but perhaps their organization wasn't perfect. Maybe they didn't provide enough info on their cargo, took off without making sure there was runway space or they didn't have the proper equipment to unload the cargo at PaP.
It's also worth noting that MSF is hardly the only medical NGO working in Haiti, so the lack of one inflatable hospital may not be so crucial. Through the coordination of Partners in Health, the Haitian government & other NGOs now have 12 working ORs & 24hr electricity at HUEH in PaP, and PIH is running 5 ORs in their other clinics/hospitals around Haiti, plus there other existing hospitals in Haiti and many clinics set up by other NGOs/governments. PIH and other groups have also med-evaced some patients & flown in surgical teams. PIH, Catholic Relief Services and others have also been trucking supplies in from the Dominican Republic from the beginning - perhaps MSF should have been thinking of that option sooner.
takes your sun glasses ppls away of this airport, and lets the medical ppls do thier jobs!
;)
However, considering after the earthquake there was no way to get anything in, the airport control tower knocked over and debris everywhere, it is amazing aid is flowing as well as it is. Before the quake, the airport had a dozen or so flights a day. Days after the airport already met this. This morning the FAA certified it for 80 flights. By afternoon, that raised to 100. In the end, there were 120!
Doctors Without Borders are heroic. Can't we consider the logistics efforts by those working so hard at the airport heroic? Why not view everybody working so hard constructively?
Headline - "Doctors without borders- Why couldn't they land?" -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011804059.html
Traffic backed up. The Doctors Without Borders plane could not wait. Hopefully this will be avoided with things less chaotic, and their planes have appropriate priority.
The above linked article says the Haitian government set landing priorities. Negative comments abound regarding running the airport; people should be helping Haiti not occupying it; comments not consistent with Haiti setting priorities. I wish they would stop! All aid workers, in medicine, logistics, search and rescue, etcetera, are heroes!
Finally, everyone emphasizes increased coordination. President Obama designated Presidents Clinton and Bush with a role in leading US coordination. So why criticise Clinton's presence? He's there to do a job, like the doctors and the air traffic controllers.
If US military controls the airport, they find it difficult to say no to a former commander in chief. Balance this against the increased throughput at the only major logistics node still functional near Port-au-Prince. Think of that one flight (out of hundreds) as the PR budget.
Thousands of people are in grave danger of dying of thirst. In a hard choice between watching badly hurt people die (which some would anyway) and healthy children dehydrate and die when it could have been prevented, my sympathy is with MSF but my brain goes with the Haitian officials.
See these articles:
http://airforcelive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2010/01/air-forces-management-of-haiti-airport-essential-to-humanitarian-operations/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575011403710933576.html?mod=article-outset-box
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123186022
I posted about the logistics at http://drewkitty.livejournal.com
After all, there are tons of water bottles already at the airport waiting to be delivered, the port should be open in a few days to bring in much more as well as substantial food and desalination facilities, and there appear to be more people immediately threatened by medical needs than water or food as of yesterday. Hopefully better surveys and coordination can find a way to save all those who have survived this far!
That's the typical story development that one sees when there is a cover up going on. Keep your eyes on The New Yorker or The Nation for the real story to come out.
"The Christian Science Monitor in a second article, quoted Laurence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense and now based at the Center for American Progress, as saying that the US, which is leading the relief efforts in Haiti, should “consider tapping the expertise of neighboring Cuba,” which he noted, “has some of the best doctors in the world--we should see about flying them in."
"In fact, left unmentioned was the reality that Cuba already had nearly 400 doctors, EMTs and other medical personnel posted to Haiti to help with the day-to-day health needs of this poorest nation in the Americas, and that those professionals were the first to respond to the disaster, setting up a hospital right next to the main hospital in Port-au-Prince which collapsed in the earthquake, as well as a second tent-hospital elsewhere in the stricken city."
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01192010.html
If Clinton had some important info to impart he could have done via cell phone or internet until he was able to get into P au P, if that is where he needed to be. Bill Clinton and Chelsea should have landed in the Dominican Republic and the plane carrying supplies and medical personnel should have landed in P au P. He is touring the rubble - there's lots and lots of photos and video of it he could have referenced
If even one plane carrying help was diverted or delayed so the Clintons could land it was the wrong thing to do. People are suffering, dying slow and painful deaths.
I am no longer as understanding 6 days in, going on 7, as I was when this disaster hit and I am tired of all the delay and the excuses for the delays and the people in Haiti are sick, hungry,thirsty, broken and dying.
After all that, who gets in? And where in the country do they go (hence the first wave of survey efforts). You could start by changing your question to answer whether or not arrivals are being scheduled effectively? I heard that MSF actually was trying to get a spot in the flight sequence, which they did. It was not denied all together.
Right now Haiti needs everything - water, food, doctors, medical supplies and equipment, technical support staff, emergency search teams, communications equipment, trucks, bulldozers, tents and more. And enough to scale up to 300 000 people. How would you prioritize this effort? Triage says you do what helps the most the fastest. I pray this is what they chose.
Then let's go back to US AID and FEMA and ask them to get more ready-to-go packages that can be shipped faster than these seem to have been sent.
MSF isn't a new comer there, they works for years on day to day basis!
my brother is in one of this airplane, in fact half of the landing planes are supllies for the GI's and Medias and troops, why the US troops can't land in dominican Rep? Why thier C130J tactical planes can't land on land rather than airport tracks? they were designed for this!
No blame for US help, but each time you involve military on emergency it turns awfull, Let the Doctors do their jobs rather than covering US showing Flag mighty!
we only saw the Gi's with sunglasses there on report, and still ppls are dying because many hospital cargo planes were re routed!
We all know that Obama admin is eager to show thier flag and communicate, that's right, no problemo, but let those Doctors working and surgering, these ppls needs more health help than GI's and medias!
period
Also, given the known bottleneck at PaP, why did MSF not schedule their flight through DR and distribute their supplies overland?
Is the goal here to save lives in Haiti. or just to use the ongoing deaths and suffering in Haiti as a stick to beat other with?