{"id":232203,"date":"2010-01-26T12:16:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T17:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oxfam.org.uk\/applications\/blogs\/pressoffice\/?p=10182"},"modified":"2010-01-26T12:16:14","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T17:16:14","slug":"haiti-%e2%80%98phenomenal%e2%80%99-haitian-doctors-and-oxfam-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/232203","title":{"rendered":"Haiti: \u2018Phenomenal\u2019 Haitian doctors and Oxfam water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caroline Gluck\u00a0finds out\u00a0what’s being done to help the over-burdened Port-au-Prince General Hospital.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a relief to read the sign on the wall: no dead bodies after 3.30 pm. My watch showed it was 4pm.\u00a0 Thankfully, when I poked my head into the morgue at the H\u00f4pital Universit\u0113 de l’\u0112tat de Haiti, also known as the General Hospital, the room was empty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Outside, though, the ground was grimly sticky underfoot – a reminder of how many bodies had been taken to the public morgue for disposal since the earthquake that struck Haiti nearly two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

I’d come to the public hospital, one of the largest\u00a0in Haiti, to look at the work Oxfam had been doing there.\u00a0 My colleague, Karine Deniel, a public health specialist, focussing on preparedness<\/strong> and emergency response work, had been called to the hospital the week before.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She had been visibly shocked by what she saw: the hospital was packed with more than 1,000 patients, many of whom were surgery cases.\u00a0 There was no running water<\/strong> and no electricity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Outside the morgue, she said, piles of bodies wree laid out covered with flies.\u00a0 There was no water close by for doctors to make plaster casts for those with broken limbs; and water she saw in a bucket used to mop the floor was black.\u00a0 “It smelled bad; it smelt of death”, she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\"A<\/a><\/p>\n
A man walks in front of a destroyed cemetery. [Photo credit: REUTERS\/Jorge Silva, courtsey www.alertnet.org]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Oxfam installed a 5,000 litre water bladder<\/strong> in the hospital, and also trucked water to the site so that soiled surgery clothes and bedding could be washed, the kitchen could re-open, and workers in the morgue could wash down the floors, and lessen the putrefying sickly smell of corpses.<\/p>\n

“Oxfam has helped”, said Hencia Josena, one of the laundrywomen.\u00a0 “Before we had no water, no soap.”<\/p>\n

Staff told me nothing could be washed in the hospital after the earthquake struck until Oxfam trucked in water more than a week later.\u00a0\u00a0”Before Oxfam came it was a mess”, said laundry operator, Jean-Robert Deus.\u00a0 “In the surgery room, doctors had blood stains over their clothes.”<\/p>\n

Many patients still remain outside the main hospital buildings, many of which were badly destroyed, being treated in tents.\u00a0 They’re scared to go indoors, for fear of after-shocks.<\/p>\n

The dedication of staff working there both impressed and humbled me.\u00a0From the laundry washers, to the kitchen staff, to the steady stream of volunteer medics like George Williams, from New York City, who works in the triage area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“As bad as things are, this is the best humanitarian effort<\/strong> that I have ever seen”, he told me, also praising the “phenomenal” Haitian doctors he had worked with.\u00a0 “It’s the spirit, the humanitarian effort reaching out from all over the world.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Donate now and find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caroline Gluck\u00a0finds out\u00a0what’s being done to help the over-burdened Port-au-Prince General Hospital. It was a relief to read the sign on the wall: no dead bodies after 3.30 pm. My watch showed it was 4pm.\u00a0 Thankfully, when I poked my head into the morgue at the H\u00f4pital Universit\u0113 de l’\u0112tat de Haiti, also known as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}