February 28, 2011
Photo by John Carroll
I wonder if the registered voters in this tent city are going to vote for Madame Manigat, Michael, or....nobody?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Madame Manigat
February 28, 2011
Photo by John Carroll
I wonder if the registered voters in this tent city are going to vote for Madame Manigat, Michael, or....nobody?
Jesse and Monique Sullivan
Photo by John Carroll
February 28, 2011
Our beautiful cousins in Port-au-Prince.
Airport Shuttle in Les Cayes
This is how I got to the airport in Les Cayes this morning at 6 AM. The rain had stopped about an hour earlier.
My friend Shane took this picture, and I don't really know how to drive this four wheeler. I just wanted the picture to LOOK like I knew how to drive this four wheeler.
Shane graciously drove me to the airport on this vehicle.
It was really cool.
Thanks, Shane.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Esther
Photo by John Carroll
February 26, 2011
This is Esther.
She is 10 months old and weighs 13 pounds.
She also has fever, diarrhea, and dehydration.
There are alot of Esthers in Haiti right now.
Jonathan
Photo by John Carroll
February 26, 2011
Jonathan is four years old.
On exam he had a left inguinal hernia.
It was repaired yesterday and Jonathan is happy with his bear.
Corruption Kills
Photo by John Carroll
Southern Haiti
February, 2011
See this article about how corruption kills people especially during natural disasters.
Cancer in Haiti is Especially Cruel
Photo by John Carroll
February 24, 2011
This man is a very nice 65 year old man with a very swollen abdomen. It is full of ascites.
He can't take in a big breath and cannot eat due to all the pressure in his abdomen.
A needle slipped in his left lower quadrant drained three liters of red-yellow liquid. He probably had 10 more liters inside that I did not want to touch this clinic visit.
He has wasting of his facial musculature due to lack of protein. And the has the look of a dying man.
Haiti has been plundered from inside and out for the last two hundred years and innocent people like him have suffered for the last two hundred years.
He has no access to state-of-the art diagnostic and therapeutic health care. He has no access to much of anything except poverty.
We just do for him what we can. And what I do is clearly inadequate.
Baby Doc, sitting in his hotel overlooking Port-au-Prince, should personally give a hand helping him each day. When this man has personal hygiene cares that he cannot do, Baby Doc should help.
And if Baby Doc needs a day off, someone from the States that has voted to freeze funds for public projects in Haiti during the last twenty years should come down and help this man. At least bring him some pain killers during his last days.
We don't treat our animals like this.
I know my view is skewed. I work downstream. But this scenario is really Haiti for millions of Haitians who have little access to technology that exists 90 minutes from here.
Haiti is mainly a man made disaster. It is not cursed. The devil did not do this. God did not do this.
And the earthquake did not kill people. Bad buildings killed people. Lack of medical care killed people. Lack of infrastructure killed people. Lack of caring government officials kill people.
Most Haitian suffering is not necessary and is preventable in the first place.
This nice man will die a painful death due to us.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Earthquake Fallout
Photo by John Carroll
Cite Soleil
This baby was not born when the earthquake killed his father and severely injured his mother.
On January 23, 2011, not quite two weeks after the quake, the baby was born by C-section and his mother died the next day.
Grandma, pictured above, is raising her orphaned grand baby and the baby's three siblings. They live in a tiny shack that they have cobbled together.
They have nothing except each other.
Grandma is a true hero. She just doesn't feel like one.
And You Think You Have Good Security in YOUR Emergency Department....
Photo by John Carroll
Cite Soleil
February, 17, 2010
Doctors Without Borders
Photo by John Carroll
This is right outside the Cholera Treatment Center in Laplaine (Terre Noir). This Center is run by Doctors Without Borders.
Fortunately, the patient census is down here also.
However, when it rains here, the cholera cases increase during the days that follow.
Cholera in Rural Haiti
Photo by John Carroll
I am working in southwest Haiti right now.
I admitted three patients to the hospital this morning with possible cholera...I am not sure if they have it or not, but their history is consistent with cholera.
The cholera treatment centers in Port-au-Prince definitely have many fewer customers than the horrible months of November and December.
And the cholera cases in Cite Soleil this week at St. Catherine's Hospital are miniscule compared to several months ago. The MSF director in Soleil told me several days ago that their daily admissions are down to about 10 per day versus over 200 per day in November. I attribute this success to the hard work of Doctors Without Borders and their public health officers.
---------------
See this article:
UN: Cholera eases in Haiti but rural deaths high
(AP) February 18, 2011
GENEVA (AP) Haiti's cholera outbreak appears to be diminishing nationwide
but the death rate in rural areas remains alarmingly high, the United
Nations said Friday.
The mixed picture comes from Haitian government figures citing 231,070
reported cases and 4,549 deaths since the epidemic began in October.
National mortality rates from cholera are down to 2 percent, from as high as
9 percent earlier, but in some rural areas, more than one-in-ten people who
contract the disease die.
In Haiti's Sud Est region, the mortality rate hit 10.7 percent as of Feb. 9,
while in Nippes it was 6.7 percent and in the Grande Anse region, 5.9
percent. The rate should be under 1 percent, according to the World Health
Organization.
"It's there (in rural areas) that we absolutely have to strengthen our
efforts," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N. humanitarian
coordination office. "For that we need money."
The U.N. also is concerned about the possible spread of the disease during
Haiti's upcoming Carnival season.
The U.N. has asked for $175 million to deal with Haiti's cholera outbreak,
much of which is distributed to local partners and non-governmental
organizations to carry out aid work. So far, however, donors have provided
only $80 million.
The U.N. itself has been accused of inadvertedly starting the cholera
epidemic in Haiti through bad sanitation, a claim the global body has sent
experts to Haiti to investigate.
The World Health Organization said Friday it was trying to keep the
anti-cholera efforts in Haiti from collapsing.
"Even if many NGO's are leaving for different reasons, there is an exit
strategy," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said. "WHO is working with the
Ministry of Health to replace the NGOs that were running these cholera
centers."
The U.N. health agency won't rest until Haiti's mortality rate for cholera
has been further reduced, she said. "We are not giving up on getting it
under 1 percent."
But as things stand now, cholera "will be a disease for the months and years
to come in Haiti" despite it being previously unknown to generations of
Haitians, she said.
