Here are the latest on-the-ground developments as reported by our partner, the Partners in Health (PIH) team in Haiti this morning:
• PIH made enormous strides Monday in ramping up the most critically needed health intervention for earthquake victims – surgery for multiple fractures and crush wounds, many of which are badly infected and life-threatening. On Monday we were able to increase the number of functioning operating tables at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince and to open a new facility at Croix des Boquets, just outside the city, to serve as a base of surgical operations for PIH and our partners from Operation Smile. The word came through in an email from PIH Medical Director Joia Mukherjee just before midnight: “Happy to report then team Operation Smile installed, scrubbed in and operating tonight !!!!! With 5 tables going at HUEH (the general hospital in Port-au-Prince), 2 at Double Harvest (the site at Croix des Boquets) and 2 each at [long-established PIH hospitals in] Cange, Hinche and St. Marc, that’s 15 on day six. Pretty good. Now the operating can ramp up.”
• We said it yesterday. We repeat it more loudly and urgently today. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS NEED EMERGENCY SURGICAL CARE NOW!!!!! Our medical director has estimated that 20,000 people are dying each day who could be saved by surgery. The death toll and the incidence of gangrene and other deadly infections will continue to rise unless a massive effort is made to open and staff more operating rooms and to deliver essential equipment and supplies — from alcohol for sterilization to anesthesia machines, from suture to autoclaves. Transport to bring patients to hospitals is also urgently needed, including helicopters to airlift them to the hospital ship that should soon be anchored at Port-au-Prince if it has not arrived already.
• People are also dying and fleeing the city in large numbers because of delays in meeting the urgent need for water, food, and shelter. Our team on the ground reaffirms that the reports of violence on the streets of Port-au-Prince have been grossly exaggerated and have become a major obstacle to mounting the response needed to save tens of thousands of lives each day. The 82nd Airborne is on the ground providing security at the General Hospital.
• PIH co-founder Paul Farmer and former President Bill Clinton were together in Port-au-Prince on Monday. They visited the General Hospital, where PIH is coordinating operations as requested by the World Health Organization.
