Authorities battle to get aid to stricken Haitians

] The earthquake rattled the foundation of the Adventist Hospital in the city’s Jikini neighborhood, forcing patients and staff into the courtyard and lawn where they remained throughout the weekend. “We lost 52 patients yesterday," Medical Director Dr. Lesly Archer said Saturday. “I’m facing a very bad situation. We don’t have sufficient equipment and people are in danger." A skeleton crew of doctors, accustomed to a 70-bed hospital with modern operating suites, rushed among 400 patients who made their beds on concrete walkways, gravel roads and bare patches of lawn outside the hospital. Receptionists and nurses triaged patients and filled out forms at a table beneath a tarp. A technician read X-rays on a folding table under a tree. Archer said he has run short of IV fluids, painkillers, antibiotics, numbing agents, sutures, gloves, gauze, masks, iodine and antiseptics. The generator is operating, but more diesel fuel is needed. The hospital has water, but not enough. On Sunday, a water speciaist from Global Medic of Canada will begin setting up a water purification system to increase the supply of safe water. “People are dying of infection and dehydration," Archer said. “The patients are having to sleep outside. They don’t eat enough. And there’s nothing from the government, no help at all." Archer, whose specialty is obstetrics and gynecology, set up an operating room in a tent of blue tarps in the hospital’s cement driveway. A few feet away, Jean Marvins Benjamin, an eight-day-old triplet born two months early, lay in a incubator tethered to oxygen, struggling to breathe in 90-degree heat. In the makeshift operating tent, Archer and Dr. Scott Nelson, 39, an American orthopoedic surgeon who runs an speciality hospital in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, amputated the lower leg of a 38-year-old man who had been crushed by a falling building. “In Canada or the U.S., this leg would be saved. In the U.S. they would put pin and plates and fixate the fracture," said Dr. Mike Howatt, 51, a general surgeon from Canada who is volunteering with Global Medic. “But here, they don’t have the resources." [url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-01-16-haiti-hospital_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno:
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See also: Officials work to speed aid to devastated Haitians 16 Jan.`10 � With food, water and other aid flowing into Haiti in earnest, relief groups and officials are focused on moving the supplies out of the clogged airport and to hungry, haggard earthquake survivors in the capital.

] Haiti’s government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies â�� not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told the Associated Press. He said a final toll of 100,000 dead would “seem to be the minimum." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was on her way toPort-au-Prince on Saturday, to confer with President Rene Preval and U.S. and international civilian and military officials on how best to help the recovery effort and Haitian government. At a stop in Puerto Rico, Clinton reacted to reports that supplies were bottlenecked at the airport. “That’s not fair. That’s not fair. The supplies that are here today were not here yesterday." Clinton’s plane is carrying 100 cases of water and 100 cases of meals ready to eat. Clinton said the Obama Administration officials briefly considered, and then discarded, the idea of airdropping U.S. troops and materials into Haiti, given that the main port and airport can?t handle the huge influx of aid necessary for the relief operation. “They won’t do that. They don’t think that?s a good idea," she said of the military. Parachuting supplies into urban areas could cause riots, she said, and dropping troops in first to establish security was rejected as too dangerous. At the White House, President Obama met with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton who have agreed to spearhead private fundraising efforts for Haiti. During brief remarks in the Rose Garden after the meeting, Bush and Clinton both praised Obama for the government’s initial response to the earthquake disaster. In times of crisis, “Americans have always come together to lend a hand, serve others, and do what’s right," Obama said, flanked by the former presidents. [url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-01-16-haiti-saturday_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno:
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Reminiscent of Katina when it took days to get even water to the site!!

Reminiscent of Katina when it took days to get even water to the site!!

Sure, no problem

where are the helicopters and airdrops?

where are the helicopters and airdrops

I have been wondering why ms clinton went to Haiti ahead of the medical ship

Some explanations are now available on the clinton visit to haiti

] There were growing signs Saturday that foreign aid and rescue workers were getting to the people most in need - even those buried deep beneath collapsed buildings - while others struggled to cope with the countless bodies still left on the streets. Haiti’s government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies - not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press. Mr. Bellerive said an estimated 300,000 people are living on the streets in Port-au-Prince, and “getting them water, and food, and a shelter is our top priority." The Red Cross estimates 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed in Tuesday’s magnitude-7.0 earthquake. A third of Haiti’s 9 million people may be in need of aid Clinton heads to Haiti In Washington, President Barack Obama joined with his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to appeal for donations to help Haiti and he sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Caribbean nation. The US military operating Haiti’s damaged main airport said it can now handle 90 flights a day, but that wasn’t enough to cope with all the planes sent by foreign donors and governments circling overhead in hopes of winning one of the few spots available on the tarmac. The US Southern Command said it now has 24 helicopters flying relief missions - many from warships off the coast - with 4,200 military personnel involved and 6,300 more due by Monday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the World Food Program was providing high-energy biscuits and ready-to-eat meals to around 8,000 people “several times a day. “Obviously, that is only a drop in the bucket in the face of the massive need, but the agency will be scaling up to feed approximately 1 million people within 15 days and 2 million people within a month," he said. [url=http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0116/In-Haiti-signs-that-foreign-aid-flow-is-strengthening:
Blocked roads, limited equipment[/url]

See also: Chaos, Logistics Pose Obstacles For Haiti’s Recovery January 16, 2010 - Desperately needed aid â�� including food and water â�� was pouring Saturday into quake-ravaged Haiti, but the airport in the capital Port-au-Prince continued to be log-jammed as dozens of aid organizations struggled to deliver supplies to fraught survivors.

] The difficulties in delivering supplies raised concern among aid workers that frustration could turn to lawlessness in the streets. With tensions mounting in Haiti, President Obama met Saturday at the White House with two former presidents â�� George W. Bush and Bill Clinton â�� to discuss ways more Americans can help in the island nation’s recovery and rebuilding. But that task is daunting. Obstacles to Haiti’s recovery include: Rescuing The Living, Burying The Dead Estimates from the Red Cross put the number of dead between 45,000 and 50,000 following Tuesday’s magnitude-7.0 earthquake. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press a final toll of 100,000 dead would “seem to be the minimum." The country’s interior minister said it could be 200,000. But the real number is anyone’s guess. “If the government still exists and the United Nations is around, I hope they can help us get the bodies out," said Sherine Pierre, a 21-year-old communications student whose sister died when her house collapsed. While survivors continue to be pulled from the rubble, thousands of bodies are being placed into mass graves or left unclaimed in the streets. NPR’s Carrie Kahn described the scene at a morgue in the capital. “The morgue building isn’t that big, but the inside is full of bodies, and then there are bodies on the outside and around the building," she said. Authorities are “taking all the bodies they can to a common grave site outside of Port-au-Prince." The urgent hunt for survivors continues. “There are still many people, it’s unclear how many, trapped inside the rubble who are still alive," NPR correspondent Jason Beaubien in Port-au-Prince told Weekend Edition Saturday. “People say they’re hearing them. People are bringing crews in to try to get them out. People are trying to pull them out themselves," Beaubien said. [url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122645586:
Chaos In The Streets[/url]