19 January 2010

Restoring Essential Health Care in Haiti Still a Challenge

 

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew prepares a Haitian girl for evacuation to a local hospital for treatment. The crew airlifted 16 patients in a day.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew prepares a Haitian girl for evacuation to a local hospital for treatment.

By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer

Washington — As the relief effort widens in Haiti, international health experts are trying to determine how many hospitals and health clinics are able to treat patients and provide essential services, and to identify those that cannot and what their needs are, a U.S. Agency for International Development report says.

And Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) officials say relief efforts are beginning to overcome some initial issues such as communications and supply, but at the same time progress in getting services to those who most need them is not satisfactory.

“On the ground, communication and transportation remain incredibly difficult,” PAHO Deputy Director Jon Andrus told reporters January 18. “Scarcities of the bare necessities, such as food, water and fuel, are everywhere. Rubble and dead bodies clog the streets. These conditions are imposing enormous difficulties in managing the supply and distribution of the massive amounts of aid that generous people and organizations are pouring into the country.”

An initial assessment by PAHO personnel in Port-au-Prince indicates there are six operational field hospitals, which have been provided by the international community, and another six operational and nine partially operational local hospitals and clinics in and around Port-au-Prince. PAHO said January 18 that preliminary health assessments show no risk of widespread communicable diseases.

“A clearer picture of the quake’s health impact and of survivors’ current health needs is emerging,” Andrus said, according to PAHO. “Assessment teams coordinated by PAHO/WHO [World Health Organization] are visiting hospitals and health care facilities to determine where essential health services are still available and what is needed to restore them elsewhere.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said January 19 that a health cluster run by the WHO is organizing medical assistance among 21 international agencies in Port-au-Prince to speed health care to those areas hardest hit and in the greatest need of immediate medical support. Ban said he spoke with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and they assured him that the United States will do everything possible to support the United Nations role in coordinating the humanitarian operations in Haiti.

France, Indonesia, Israel, Russia, Turkey, the United States, and Doctors without Borders have set up or are deploying field hospitals, PAHO said. The U.S. Navy’s USNS Comfort with 1,000 beds, operating rooms and a medical staff of 560 will arrive early on January 20, Major General Dan Allyn, the deputy commander of the U.S. joint task force , said at a press briefing late January 19 from Port-au-Prince via conference call.

Some Haitians are being treated at health clinics along the border with the Dominican Republic, PAHO said, and some injured and ill patients are being sent to facilities in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and other nations within the region.

Five World Health Organization medical kits arrived January 19. They can provide medical supplies for up to 10,000 people for a two-month period, USAID said. These kits will be provided to hospitals and clinics. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has activated five disaster medical assistance teams in Port-au-Prince that will support eight severely damaged hospital and health centers, USAID said.

PAHO said that where some local health facilities have been overwhelmed with patients, nongovernmental organizations are working with health care workers to treat patients.

USAID said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has set up a field hospital at Hospital Universitaire d’ Haiti in Port-au-Prince, and the first surgeries were performed January 18. And three Red Cross basic health care emergency response units had arrived in Haiti January 18 to provide care and triage in Port-au-Prince and eventually in Jacmel, USAID said.