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N Engl J Med. The GHESKIO Refugee Camp after the Earthquake in Haiti ? Dispatch 2 from Port-au-Prince
The GHESKIO Refugee Camp after the Earthquake in Haiti -- Dispatch 2 from Port-au-Prince (N Engl J Med., extract, edited)
Published at www.nejm.org February 12, 2010 (10.1056/NEJMpv1001785)
The GHESKIO Refugee Camp after the Earthquake in Haiti ? Dispatch 2 from Port-au-Prince
The first phase of the disaster in Haiti is now ending, with hundreds of thousands of people having died from trauma. But the second phase promises to be as cruel as the first, with deaths due to exposure, starvation, and infectious diseases. Millions of Haitians are homeless and have no food, clean water, sanitation, or primary health care. And the rainy season is coming.
The Port-au-Prince clinic of the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (GHESKIO) has become a refugee camp and an emergency field hospital, even as we continue to run our clinic for thousands of patients with AIDS or tuberculosis. Despite our own losses (4 GHESKIO staff members died, 4 were critically injured, 28 lost an immediate family member, and 90 are homeless), we continue to provide medical care around the clock, working with international partners.
The number of people living in the GHESKIO refugee camp has swelled, and members of our community advisory board and faculty members from neighboring Quisqueya University have organized the camp into 38 "quartiers." A census counted 6109 people, including 1046 children under 5 years of age, crowded into 1162 makeshift shelters. The Danish Red Cross visited our camp and noted that it was the most densely populated one they had seen in Port-au-Prince. Most of the refugees come from two large nearby slums. Family leaders were identified and given an identification card.
Refugees receive water from a GHESKIO well and from water-delivery trucks. We have not yet received United Nations (UN) food tickets to provide refugees access to food at the city's 16 distribution sites. Sanitation improved recently, when we received 12 portable toilets from Oxfam, but we need more. We have distributed UN sanitation kits with commode buckets and toilet paper and have hired refugees to pick up garbage and a large truck to haul it away. We also hired people from the camp to dig trenches to drain standing water and reduce mosquito reservoirs.
(...)
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<cite cite="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMpv1001785?query=TOC">NEJM -- The GHESKIO Refugee Camp after the Earthquake in Haiti -- Dispatch 2 from Port-au-Prince</cite>
The GHESKIO Refugee Camp after the Earthquake in Haiti ? Dispatch 2 from Port-au-Prince
The first phase of the disaster in Haiti is now ending, with hundreds of thousands of people having died from trauma. But the second phase promises to be as cruel as the first, with deaths due to exposure, starvation, and infectious diseases. Millions of Haitians are homeless and have no food, clean water, sanitation, or primary health care. And the rainy season is coming.
The Port-au-Prince clinic of the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (GHESKIO) has become a refugee camp and an emergency field hospital, even as we continue to run our clinic for thousands of patients with AIDS or tuberculosis. Despite our own losses (4 GHESKIO staff members died, 4 were critically injured, 28 lost an immediate family member, and 90 are homeless), we continue to provide medical care around the clock, working with international partners.
The number of people living in the GHESKIO refugee camp has swelled, and members of our community advisory board and faculty members from neighboring Quisqueya University have organized the camp into 38 "quartiers." A census counted 6109 people, including 1046 children under 5 years of age, crowded into 1162 makeshift shelters. The Danish Red Cross visited our camp and noted that it was the most densely populated one they had seen in Port-au-Prince. Most of the refugees come from two large nearby slums. Family leaders were identified and given an identification card.
Refugees receive water from a GHESKIO well and from water-delivery trucks. We have not yet received United Nations (UN) food tickets to provide refugees access to food at the city's 16 distribution sites. Sanitation improved recently, when we received 12 portable toilets from Oxfam, but we need more. We have distributed UN sanitation kits with commode buckets and toilet paper and have hired refugees to pick up garbage and a large truck to haul it away. We also hired people from the camp to dig trenches to drain standing water and reduce mosquito reservoirs.
(...)
[For Free Full Document follow the link below]