As a former military, I have naturally been impressed by and have publicized the lead role taken by the U.S. military in bringing humanitarian assistance and relief to devastated Haiti.
Of course, the U.S. military are not alone in performing such efforts. Many other countries, and their military, and many other governmental and non-governmental civilian and private organizations are also providing invaluable aid and services.
Since I have been mainly praising and highlighting the U.S. military and their efforts, I will call those “other” groups the “unsung heroes.”
The following is a round-up from various publications of such noble efforts, organizations and people:
KWTX.com January 15
The Michigan-based Baptist Haiti Mission says its hospital near the epicenter of Tuesday’s earthquake is open and the staff is doing the best it can to treat a flood of casualties.
Sparks said Baptist Haiti Mission has more than 350 churches and schools throughout the country, and at least two of its churches were destroyed in the quake, but the hospital and surrounding missionary compound a few miles west of Port-au-Prince were relatively undamaged.
American Red Cross, January 16:
Truckloads of Red Cross supplies arrived in Port-au-Prince today and thousands of responders are traveling the streets providing water and first aid as well as finding lost loved ones and transporting people with serious injuries to nearby health facilities.
Within the convoy that arrived today are 50-bed field hospitals and purification equipment capable of producing 10,000 gallons of drinking water per day. The mobile hospitals have a dedicated section to help people cope with emotional trauma. Toys and specially-trained volunteers will be available to comfort children, who are particularly vulnerable.
An additional seven truckloads of equipment and materials including medical supplies, that were on Red Cross planes re-routed to Dominican Republic Friday, are traveling overland and are expected to arrive in Port-au-Prince by Sunday. Two flights will arrive in the capital city, carrying enough relief supplies for more than 32,000 families, on Monday as well.
The American Red Cross team and responders from more than 30 countries, totaling more than 100, have now arrived and are providing a wide-range of support, including food, water, field hospitals, emotional support and sanitation services.
Lutheran World Relief and Partners, January 16:
Lutheran World Relief and its partners on the ground are rushing to provide water, water purification supplies, food, and shelter items to victims of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12.
LWR has pledged $1 million to overall relief work in Haiti, and anticipates increasing that commitment as partners work to assess needs on the ground. LWR will send an initial $150,000 to the Lutheran World Federation immediately, to deliver water containers and purification materials, as well as temporary shelter items. LWR is also coordinating with 400 people on the ground through partnerships with Catholic Relief Services, local partners in Haiti, and other international faith-based organizations.
LWR is also preparing a shipment of layettes and health kits estimated to depart for Haiti on January 19 or 20.
Huffington Post, January 16:
The United States Fund for UNICEF has released $3.4 million toward relief efforts but says more funding is needed to provide basic medical and health supplies, family kits/shelter and water hygiene and sanitation supplies.
What follows is a breakdown of other relief agencies, U.S. corporations, and individual countries that have pledged relief to the battered country of the West Indies.
• Walmart operations around the world, along with the Walmart Foundation announced they were donating 500,000 to the Red Cross to their relief efforts in Haiti. Food donations additionally valued at100,000 will be donated by the discount department store chain.
• Bank of America announced a1 million commitment to aid the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. The commitment includes a500,000 grant to the American Red Cross for the Haitian Relief and Development Fund.
• Catholic Relief Services is shipping food and other aid to help families affected by a powerful earthquake. CRS has committed an initial5 million (US) to help survivors of the devastating quake.
• Direct Relief International has raised420,000, including sending 40-foot and 20-foot containers containing essential medicine, supplies, and nutritionals.
• Google, the Mountain View, California. Internet search engine company announced on its website that it was donating $1 million to organizations on the ground, those still trapped, while providing clean water, food, medical care, and shelter to UN Organizations and non-governmental organizations.
• Go Daddy, the Scottsdale Ariz. web hosting company sent a $500,000 check to Hope for Haiti, a nonprofit organization based in Naples, Fla, dedicated to improving education, nutrition, and healthcare in Haiti.
• The UPS Foundation has donated $1 million that will be divided between the American Red Cross, CARE, UNICEF and other organizations; $500,000 in cash and $500,000 of in-kind services for the shipment of needed supplies.
• The General Motors Foundation announced on its website that it has approved $100,000 donation that will be sent to the American Red Cross to help with Haiti’s relief efforts.
• YumiBrands Inc, a restaurant company, based in Louisville Ky, announced it was directing $500,000 from its World Hunger Relief program to provide food for earthquake victims in Haiti.
Reliefweb.int, January 14:
MADRE’s Emergency Medical Relief Effort is Reaching Earthquake Survivors in Haiti. You may be wondering whether MADRE is actually able to transport emergency relief given Haiti’s decimated infrastructure.
We have determined that our partner organization in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, is able to bring humanitarian aid overland into the country. Teams of healthcare workers from the project have established a functioning supply chain through the Dominican Republic and are currently delivering medical aid to those most in need in Haiti.
Zanmi Lasante has more than 120 doctors and nearly 500 nurses and nursing assistants coordinating emergency medical relief efforts. They are setting up mobile field hospitals in Port-au-Prince, where staff can triage patients, provide emergency care and send those who need surgery or more complex treatment to our partner’s functioning hospitals and surgical facilities outside the destroyed city.
UNICEF, January 15:
To overcome the massive humanitarian obstacles that still face some 3 million people affected by the quake, UNICEF today issued a call for almost $120 million to support its relief operations in Haiti. The funding is part of a wider UN appeal for $562 million.
Since the disaster struck on 12 January, emergency responders’ first priority has been search-and-rescue assistance – including teams with heavy-lifting equipment, as well as medical aid. UNICEF’s efforts have focused on water and sanitation, therapeutic food for infants and small children, medical supplies and temporary shelter, which are also urgent needs.
The first direct airlift of UNICEF supplies to Haiti arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport early this morning [January 15] carrying water tanks and water-purification tablets. The flight also delivered rehydration salts, which are needed to treat the potentially deadly effects of diarrhea, especially in young children.
Two more planeloads are expected to land this weekend in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, with 70 metric tonnes of tents, tarpaulins and medicines. The supplies will be shipped overland into Haiti.
Meanwhile, at a dusty crossroads just inside the Dominican Republic, on the border with Haiti, the town of Jimani is throwing a lifeline to its neighbours.
A constant stream of ambulances carries wounded Haitians to the border town, which has become a vital part of the international rescue effort. Jimani is the transit point for supplies that UNICEF and others are sending to Haiti. The town’s hospital is overflowing with patients, as the medical staff struggles to cope with the number of wounded.
Boomberg.com, January 16:
The Haitian government, the UN, aid agencies and foreign governments are struggling to coordinate the distribution of the 180 tons of relief supplies that have already landed in Haiti, said Tim Callaghan, senior regional adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and USAID.
Five emergency health centers have been set up, one by the French relief group Doctors without Borders and others by the Argentine and Israeli governments. The U.S. Navy is sending the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship, to the island.
McDonough said supplies have arrived from countries all over the world, including Brazil, China and Mexico. He said the U.S. today will deliver 600,000 so-called humanitarian daily rations, packets of food that provide 2,600 calories of nutrition, to be distributed by the World Food Program. The UN has estimated about 2 million survivors require food assistance.
The World Food Program is feeding 8,000 people several times a day and is preparing to feed about 1 million people within 15 days and 2 million people within a month, Ban said.
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières—MSF), January 16:
More than 2,000 patients have been treated so far at MSF locations, and patients are pouring in. MSF teams are doing their best in terms of administering first aid, but surgery needs are huge. Major impediment have to do with blockages at the airport, challenges to moving people and freight quickly, and damage to pre-existing facilities.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgical units in Port-au-Prince continue to work around the clock to treat the vast numbers of patients with serious injuries from the January 12 earthquake. Prioritizing the most serious cases, the teams have been performing caesarian sections and amputations. Experienced MSF medical staff say they have never seen so many serious injuries.
An MSF surgical team that relocated to Chocsal Hospital after its facility in Martissant was badly damaged has been working non-stop since early on Friday. At Trinité trauma hospital, where the team is treating people under canvas on the grounds of the medical facility that was hit by the earthquake, surgery has been taking place in an improvised operating theater. In Carrefour, a district that was very badly affected, MSF has just started working in a hospital with two operating theatres.
…Patients are being brought in by wheelbarrow and on others’ backs. There are other hospitals in the area but they are already overflowing with injured people and have limited numbers of Haitian staff or supplies.
The struggle to find more buildings that could be used for MSF’s medical work is continuing, as are the efforts to get more medical staff and supplies into the country. The major difficulty here is the bottleneck at the airport, which has turned away a number of vital cargo flights. Lack of authorization to land at the airport has already caused a 24-hour delay of the planned arrival of MSF’s much needed inflatable hospital.
MSF has managed to get more than 70 additional staff into Port-au-Prince, mostly through neighboring Dominican Republic. They are beginning to take some of the strain off the teams who were already there when the quake struck.
It has become clear that a number of our Haitian staff did not survive the devastation. MSF is still trying to confirm the whereabouts of others and is increasingly concerned about their welfare.
MSF’s activities are rapidly scaling up and the next move will be to assess different parts of the city, where needs are expected to be equally high. To help address the massive scale and variety of the assistance required, MSF hopes to start other medical activities as soon as possible, including mobile clinics where there are no functional health structures, and mental health for people who have been traumatized.
There are many, many more such examples of humanitarian aid, and of humanity.
I just watched on CNN a team of Los Angeles first responders searching for a young girl believed trapped under the rubble…
Image: Courtesy Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
