The town of about 1,000 people sustained a direct hit from Hurricane Michael, which blasted beach homes and buildings with winds of 155 miles per hour, just under a Category 5 hurricane.

Reports say over 90 percent of homes in the town are destroyed or uninhabitable. Among the buildings destroyed was the town’s fire station, where Chief Walker manages a firefighting crew of 12.

I met Walker last week in my role as Direct Relief’s Director of Emergency Response while delivering medicines and supplies to first responders. We met at Mexico Beach City Hall, which was being used as a hub for supplies, and a place where people could get information about their friends and neighbors.

We were directed to City Hall by a group of firefighters who had come in from Sarasota to support Chief Walker and his crew.

The staff at City Hall told us to hang tight until someone could review the medicine we had to offer. After waiting around 45 minutes, we heard a man in a Mexico Beach fire uniform ask the clerk to direct him to “the guys who had brought the medicines.” That person was Chief Walker.

He walked us over to his truck. He still was carrying firefighting gear that he deployed with the night Michael hit, and asked us what we had to provide.

Our team had medicine; antibiotics like Ceftriaxone and Z-paks and EpiPens, medical supplies for things like wound care, and first responder packs. Because we showed up somewhat unexpectedly to the epicenter of the strongest hurricane to ever hit this region, I was expecting him to say “thanks, but we’re all good, we’ve got what we need.”

Surely he would have had the resources he needed to do what he and his team were trained to do. Tuned out, they didn’t. He invited us to the fire station nearby to see for ourselves.

We followed his truck down the beach and inland a few blocks. Mexico Beach is small, with a population barely over 1,000. It had been quaint.

That was before houses were ripped from their foundations and sent tumbling down the streets. Nothing was left except piles of sand strewn with personal items. The only thing I’d ever seen that resembled this amount of devastation in the U.S. were the 2013 tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma, where wind gusts of 210 miles per hour killed 24 people and caused $2 billion in damage.

Walker showed us where the fire station’s exterior ripped off. He pointed out the waterline left by nine feet of water that rushed through the interior and ruined gear that had been placed carefully on shelves six feet above the ground. The water-logged gear had since been placed on the dirt outside the station to dry out.

Muck six inches deep covered the inside of the station. The department’s all-terrain vehicle was flooded and non-functional.

When a fire broke out as a result of broken gas line, firefighters had to watch it burn itself out, since they’d lost their tanker truck and pump. It took all night before the fire died down.

Despite all that, Walker maintained calm. He was collected. He was working.

Yes, he was worried about his crew and their houses and their families. He mentioned that he was thinking about the nights when the out-of-town fire crews left and wondering if he had enough gear and crew to be able to work should something happen.

He wondered how or when they’d get a new fire station. But overall, he was focused on the task at hand and was going to do whatever he needed to get the job done. He was even talking about volunteering for other county’s fire departments in case they needed help.

Chief Walker and the Mexico Beach Fire Department weren’t the only crews on the scene. Crews from around the nation came in to help. But when the out-of-town teams leave – and they will – the work will be left to Chief Walker and his station. It’s always the local crew that gets the first call when something happens in their hometown.

In Direct Relief’s hometown, on the morning of Jan. 9, 2018, local fire departments were first on the scene when mudslides killed 24 people.

As first responders worked heroically to rescue people, they requested specialized items like all-terrain vehicles and water rescue equipment. Direct Relief was able to quickly procure these items so they’d have what they needed to meet the challenges the disaster had surfaced.

We’ll do the same for Chief Walker and the Mexico Beach Fire Department, to make sure they’re prepared and ready for the next one. Because Chief Walker and his crew are ready. But they need the gear to do the jobs they’ve trained for.

As part of a $250,000 commitment to the Hurricane Michael recovery effort, Direct Relief has allocated $10,000 to help the Mexico Beach Fire Department with equipment replacement. Direct Relief has been supporting health centers and free clinics in Florida with medical aid since 2009, and will be infusing these health facilities with additional support as they recover from Hurricane Michael’s impacts.

The post Mexico Beach, Home of Heroes appeared first on Direct Relief.

The Rohingya refugee situation is among the world’s most urgent humanitarian crises. With more than 800,000 individuals living in densely populated camps and packed in makeshift shelters with minimal infrastructure, the risks to human health and safety abound. Outbreaks of diphtheria and measles have already occurred in the camps, and concerns are mounting from upcoming rains and the potential for cholera and other water-borne disease that follow.

“Direct Relief is deeply concerned about the unfolding crisis surrounding the Rohingya people in Bangladesh and understands from experience how the massive and rapid influx of people into a densely populated area can rapidly escalate into a massive humanitarian crisis,” said Direct Relief President and CEO Thomas Tighe. “As always, the priority is to support local partners who live and work in Cox’s Bazar and have the established systems to best care for the influx of people.”

Since the refugee crisis began, Direct Relief has sent $2.7 million in requested medical supplies to health providers in Bangladesh. Recipients of medical assistance include Hope Hospital and other providers in Cox’s Bazar.

Among the supplies delivered to date are 18 field clinic tents, solar panels and battery systems to provide power and lighting within healthcare clinics and delivery rooms, diagnostic equipment, water purification systems, personal protective gear for medical staff, wound care materials, hygiene items and oral rehydration salts.

Additionally, Direct Relief is prepositioning emergency medical supplies in advance of monsoon season and has already delivered an Emergency Health Kit comprised of the medical materials needed to care for 1,000 patients in low-resource settings, in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines.

The post Direct Relief Commits $250,000 in Funds to Assist Rohingya Refugees, Makes Full Medical Inventory Available for Relief Efforts appeared first on Direct Relief.

I’m generally very impressed with the response of the people to try and end the Ebola epidemic. Everywhere you go, your temperature is taken with an infrared thermometer. It happens going into a restaurant or hotel or office building. When you drive into a new town, you have to stop at a checkpoint that’s usually organized and staffed by the community. They make you stop the car, roll down the windows, and get everyone’s temperature.

The thermometer is held up to your face for a few seconds, it beeps, and they show you your temperature. Since it’s in Celsius, it took a few times to realize what was normal, or good, or not Ebola. Apparently you don’t want to be much above 39 degrees. And if you are, they’ll stop you, wait a few minutes to take it again in case you were just temporarily hot or nervous.

If you’re still high, you’ll head straight to an Ebola treatment center or community care center where they can now give you a blood test to determine if you have the virus. Just a month ago, the testing capacity was not what it was now, and so you’d have to stay and be monitored until your fever went down.

In Aberdeen, another town directly across the road from our hotel in Freetown, there has been a recent spike in cases in a small, extremely poor part of town. The Ebola response strategy there was to post the military at the edge of town and not allow anyone to come or go. The word is that they’re being treated well—they get the food and money they need. But it was quite a harsh scene to drive by a town guarded by the military knowing that the strategy was containment even now that they’ve proven Ebola can be fairly effectively treated.

Generally though, the sense is that this is going to be beaten down to zero pretty soon. Even now, the daily case counts are down to about 12-14 per day, which is still high, but a huge drop from the 100s they used to report every day. And while people are still vigilant and cautious (I haven’t shaken anyone’s hand since I’ve been here…a right hand crossed over your heart is the preferred greeting now), it’s still hard to fight your human instinct to touch another person.

Every time I’ve met someone, my instinct is to shake their hand, and it feels rude and awkward not to. Today, when we visited Makeni General Hospital, a doctor we were with (who hasn’t been practicing medicine in some time) went up to a woman who had just delivered a baby and was in some pain. He touched her arm to see how she was doing after noticing a large pool of blood on the floor, and the other doctors immediately hollered at him, reminding him that he wasn’t wearing gloves. But it was his instinct, as it is most of ours. It’s human nature.

We went inside the surgical ward where they perform five C-sections per day. Normally, what would stand out to me would be the fact that there was no surgical light, ultrasound machine, anesthesia machine, or sterilizer. But today what I noticed was the air conditioners were broken, and now that doctors have to wear full body personal protective gear during a surgery that could last hours and its 90 degrees in there; it was stifling.

After we left this hospital, which clearly needed support and is struggling against terrible odds of Ebola and a total lack of equipment, it occurred to me that I had read a New York Times article about this hospital a few months ago titled, “A Hospital from Hell” and after re-reading it just now, I realized we were given a tour by the doctor quoted in the article. He was nearly my height, probably younger than me yet he’d been practicing six years, skinny as a rail, and what he kept saying was, “This is a referral hospital for the entire northern region of the country, can you imagine?”

Things are not all bad, however. The midwifery school we visited today that we helped start nearly five years ago is a beacon of light for the community and for the women who attend it. It’s been closed because of Ebola but they are set to start up again in March and resume classes for the roughly 150 men and women who attend. According to many, the kits they get when they graduate that Direct Relief provides them a great deal of pride to receive it before going to work in their post.

And the labor and delivery clinic that we equipped is said by all to be the “best in the region, if not the country” thanks to the delivery beds, midwife kits, sterilizers, and other supplies that were donated.

We’ll see what the next days have in store.

The post From the Field: Battle Against Ebola Continues in Sierra Leone appeared first on Direct Relief.

The cynical answer might go something like this:

It’s still bad. The last people are just now finally leaving the tents. Many schools, hospitals, and roads that were damaged remain in disrepair. Unemployment is extremely high. A number of health-related challenges, such as near endemic levels of cholera and chikungunya — diseases that appeared since the earthquake — have had far more awful consequence because of the lack of infrastructure and resources to combat them. Deaths from non-communicable diseases and cancers are among the world’s highest. Maternal mortality is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. The country is as vulnerable to next disaster than they were five years ago.

Now for the more optimistic answer:

Things are definitely improving and many things are better than they were before. Hundreds of thousands of people who lost their homes have relocated to more permanent housing. Hundreds of schools are open now. Hospitals have been rebuilt and retrofitted by Partners in Health and others with equipment never-before-seen in Haiti. People with disabilities are getting better care than ever before by groups like Healing Hands for Haiti. Deaths from cholera dropped from 10 percent to under one percent. Maternity care is getting better as midwives are being trained again. The list goes on.

Who’s right?

My guess is both, but instead of trying to answer that question myself, I decided to ask some extremely talented and dedicated individuals who are working every day to improve the country and provide better healthcare for their people.

Here’s what they say:

Dr. Micheline Baguidy, Medical Director, J/P Haitian Relief Organization:

Right after the earthquake, the media was pointed to Haiti. The message was easier to be shared with the world and the funds came in to facilitate the work that needed to be done. Now five years later, it seems that people have forgotten. There is still a lot of be achieved and work to be done with the people in Haiti, but now with a lot less money and other support. We’ve had to do more with a while lot less.

Dr. Inobert Pierre, Director General – Haiti Operations, St. Boniface Haiti Foundation

The earthquake destroyed many healthcare facilities that haven’t been rebuilt. Today, the health system is very limited in its ability to fulfill the medical needs of the population. Last year, for example, we had shortages of vaccines against diseases like diphtheria, which exposed the shortcomings of the system.

The facilities still face a dire situation in terms of availability of supplies, medicines, equipment, well-trained personnel. With no health care insurance and the high cost of medical services, the poor – the majority of people — are refused the fundamental right of basic medical care.

In my work at St. Boniface Hospital, we strive to keep up with the numerous challenges we deal with on a daily basis. Because we have limited resources and the demand is huge, we partner with organizations such as Direct Relief and UNICEF to ensure the most vulnerable people get access to effective medicines and quality healthcare. This also enables us to provide affordable obstetrical care to save the lives of women and babies.

Despite a worsening economic situation and an increased need since the earthquake, St. Boniface has provided care to more people and made a positive impact on the families and communities that we serve.

The country made the headlines right after the earthquake, which revealed to the world the challenges Haiti faces.  It was so touching to witness the world’s solidarity toward Haiti. Five years after the earthquake, too many people still lack the basic necessities of life. Many schools and hospitals that became rubble are still waiting for a second life. It’s unlikely though, since the general feeling is that, after five years, all the problems have been solved. The most vulnerable people still need a helping hand to brighten their days. We need to keep this in mind, and in the headlines.

Dr. M Edson Augustin, Assistant Medical Director, St. Luke Foundation

The weakened health system leaves us less equipped to face a major issue like the January 2010 earthquake. The unavailability of health insurance poses another significant challenge. Without it‎, guaranteeing urgent and quality care – as we do at St. Luke for everyone who comes through the door — is a real struggle. Fortunately, it’s one we manage to overcome. Despite limited resources, we continue to get the most needed care to the most vulnerable patients — irrespective of financial and economic status.

What gives me hope for the future? The capacity of my Haitian people to learn through experience, their dynamism, and the leadership of intelligent young men and women who work together to achieve significant and sustainable ‎goals.

I would like people to know that Haitians can be self-sufficient with the right tools, training and opportunity. To fight poverty — the main issue in my country — we need only education for our children and work for adults. Haitian people want to live decently and unified as a nation, but poverty is really hitting us as a society. Haitian people are very sincere and capable leaders and care about their country. It’s not about ability, capacity, desire, or a determination to move forward – each of which Haitians have in abundance. It’s about poverty. That’s all.

Dr. Jessy Colimon-Adrien, Head of Pediatrics, Haiti General Hospital

The major challenges for us  is the rebuilding of the main teaching public hospital. The process is very slow. Presently, the conditions are difficult because of limited settings and infrastructure. But despite all of the problems, Haiti is a beautiful country with courageous people. We need peace and better living conditions and better infrastructure to survive.

The post How Are Things Going in Haiti? appeared first on Direct Relief.

In the Philippines, the island barangays, or villages, in the Municipality of Concepcion are geographically isolated, costing residents more money and time to access health care. During periods of inclement weather, accessing the mainland is impossible for island communities. It is therefore of crucial importance that childhood illness danger signs are identified and referred quickly as part of routine community health monitoring by island Barangay Health Workers (BHWs).

BHW’s provide an essential safety net in the monitoring of health in their community and act as outreach for the RHU (Rural Health Unit) medical staff and midwives.  They play an even more critical role for those vulnerable populations whether affected directly by Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda), or through geographical/nautical isolation, or the combination of both.

Philippine medical personnel in Concepcion as well as at the regional office have consistently identified community level management and referral of common childhood illnesses as a particular gap in primary healthcare in the Concepcion municipality. In order to improve these skills, Direct Relief funded the training of 50 Barangay Health Workers from Concepcion’s 11 island barangays who participated in the Community Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (CIMCI) training.

CIMCI training teaches BHWs how to manage common childhood illnesses such as coughs, colds, fevers, and diarrhea. The ‘Sick Child’ training module, developed in collaboration by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization, and the Philippines Department of Health, highlights 12 key childhood illnesses danger signs. It teaches BHWs to monitor their communities for children presenting with any of these danger signs and refer them for further treatment through a clear CIMCI referrals process. CIMCI training also teaches BHWs to monitor malnutrition in their communities by regularly taking Middle Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) measurements and referring children demonstrating severe acute malnutrition (SAM) or moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) for further treatment.

Testing both prior to and after the training on key CIMCI concepts showed a marked improvement in identifying danger signs and understanding the referrals process to enable sick children to receive prompt medical attention.

It was an amazing thing to see–not five months after the typhoon wrecked their communities, people in these Barangay’s in the Concepcion Islands now have access to quality health services, brand new equipment, and an increased knowledge in their profession. Pregnant women previously had to deliver at home or risk traveling by boat to the health unit will now be able to access prenatal care and deliver babies in a new facility with nighttime power, and clean running water. And children who may have had serious illnesses go undetected should now be clearly identified and referred for proper care.

When we met Dr. Minguez, the sole doctor in Concepcion, the first thing she said was, “thank you,” but quickly followed up with, “we need to do more.” None of the other health stations, or even major hospitals in the area, have yet been repaired. Direct Relief is proud to have worked with our partner Access Aid International in this program but there is indeed much work left to be done.

The post Training Health Workers in Remote Philippine Communities appeared first on Direct Relief.

All 16 of the Barangay Health Stations in the Municipality of Concepcion were damaged in the typhoon.  As an essential safety net for medical care in remote communities, Direct Relief sponsored the reconstruction of two priority health stations that were identified by the Mayor of Concepcion, Milliard Villanueva, as well as the Municipal Health Officer, Dr. Helen Minguez.

In the Philippines, the first point of medical care is the Barangay Health Station (BHS). During inclement weather or emergency situations, mothers who live on one of the 11 islands off the mainland will deliver at the remote island barangays, or villages.  To provide a safer birthing environment in these vulnerable situations, the reconstruction plans of both health stations included a birthing clinic. Working with partner Access Aid International (AAI), the two sites have completely transformed.

In less than five months after Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda), both health stations received full roofing replacement, replacement of broken windows, replacement of damaged ceiling panels, provision of solar electricity supply, safe drinking water, and restoration of essential medicine and medical equipment to match that of the established Philippine Ministry of Health Essential Medicines and Medical Equipment list.

Some of the donated items include: delivery beds, nebulizers, stools, medical cabinets and trolleys, IV stands and baby cribs. Direct Relief Midwife Kits will also be provided to both BHS birthing clinics. So far, these are the only two health stations of the 16 damaged that have received any sort of repair or reconstruction in Concepcion.

Additionally, Direct Relief and AAI are supporting primary healthcare in Concepcion by conducting full microbiological water testing of certain water points and waterborne disease outbreak monitoring in partnership with the Concepcion Mayor and Municipal Health Office. Water testing involves measures of turbidity, pH, chlorine, and incubating water samples to test for faecal coliforms (E. coli).

Related post: From the Philippines: Improving Health Care in Island Communities

The post Reconstructing Typhoon-Damaged Health Stations in the Philippines appeared first on Direct Relief.

It was clear after Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) struck that the people living in the Municipality of Concepcion – the typhoon’s fifth point of landfall – would need medical assistance. All of the Barangay (village) Health Stations on the municipality’s 11 islands suffered damage and residents were largely unable to access care on the mainland because of the damage of their boats. Therefore, the medical care had to go to them.

Direct Relief, in partnership with Access Aid International (AAI), has provided medical care to more than 2,000 people in 16 remote barangays in Concepcion. This was done over the course of two months and 44 medical clinics, all of which were run with medicines and supplies provided by Direct Relief.

According to Dr. Helen Minguez, the Municipal Health Officer for Concepcion, and the only doctor for the entire Municipality of 50,000 people, “without a doubt, these medical interventions saved lives, both in the immediate aftermath of Yolanda and in the recovery phase in later in identifying serious illnesses that could have easily become life-threatening if not for the services provided by Direct Relief and AAI.”

Direct Relief continues to provide medical resources to its partners providing care for typhoon survivors as they recover from the storm. Because of generous donations from individuals, companies, and foundations, Direct Relief has supported a total of more than 100 health care facilities across the Philippines with over $13.2 million worth of medical aid – enough to treat more than 500,000 people.

Related posts: From the Philippines: Improving Health Care in Island Communities

The post Medical Clinics Treat 2,000 Typhoon Survivors appeared first on Direct Relief.

Of the roughly 50,000 people living in Concepcion, nearly half of them live in a string of 11 islands off the coast of the mainland in extremely exposed conditions. Families on Macatunao told us that when the storm hit, the 5,000 people in the village ran up to the top of a mountain and waited out the storm for six hours.

Luckily, everyone survived, but 100 percent of the homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving the people to sleep in extremely cramped conditions in the school and the single health station, which also sustained much damage, for over a month.

Additionally, almost all of their boats were destroyed. That not only affects their livelihoods (the primary source of income for these island communities is fishing) but also their ability to get to the mainland for food, water, and medical care.

In the Philippines, the first point of medical care is the Barangay Health Station (BHS). Ideally, there is one health station per Barangay and they are typically staffed by a midwife. Frequently, women will deliver their babies at these health stations; families will receive primary care services there; and it is where children will receive their vaccinations. For the health care system to work, it is crucial that these stations are intact and functional.

Working with longtime partner Access Aid International (AAI), Direct Relief made a three-pronged commitment to improve the health care and infrastructure in these island communities by:

• Providing immediate health care services after Yolanda (Haiyan) struck
• Rebuilding two critical Barangay Health Stations
• Providing essential training to 50 Barangay Health Workers

Visit the Direct Relief blog over the next several days to read more of my stories about these projects.

The post From the Philippines: Improving Health Care in Island Communities appeared first on Direct Relief.

After meeting with the local Red Cross, the local Disaster Management Agency, and the Governor of Cebu, an extremely gracious and friendly man, we headed north to Bogo, a city on the northeast coast of Cebu, a province hit hard by the typhoon. More than 90 percent of homes were damaged and more than 500 families are living in shelters, according to the local officials.

We arrived at the Provincial Hospital and found the Israeli army/medical team had set up their field operations in the yard of the hospital and were treating hundreds of patients per day, many of whom were injured in the typhoon.

These guys were also some of the first on the scene after the Haiti earthquake and performed surgeries on patients who suffered some of the most traumatic injuries. They arrived into Bogo about four days after the Typhoon in their military planes and arrive on-site as a fully-functional trauma care hospital. They did some major surgeries after the Typhoon but are now transitioning things back to the local hospital as it settles down.

Inside, we met Dr. Carlos Layese Jr., a pediatrician and the chief medical officer of the hospital. The place was bustling–over 200 babies are born there every month, and it has a tuberculosis (TB) isolation ward, and busy operating theater. Every single bed was full when we went there. In fact, they are an 80 bed hospital with 150 patients inside, so the hallways were jam-packed with patients.

Dr. Doug Gross, a pediatrician and a member of the US Federal DMAT team who is traveling with us, got to spend some time with patients, including a three-day-old baby with pneumonia who was having an extremely hard time breathing. Looking at this baby, you could instantly tell something was wrong because her whole body moved up and down as she struggled to breathe at an incredibly fast pace.

They had her on oxygen and IV antibiotics. Dr. Gross said that was the correct procedure and hopefully the antibiotics would kill whatever it was making her labor for breath, but it was still very hard to witness. The fear is that if she gets any worse, they don’t have a ventilator for her to use and so eventually she won’t be able to breathe on her own any longer.

It’s incredibly sad to see something like that – where for a lack of a piece of equipment, a mother might lose her child. It’s not for any lack of medical care or training–just a simple lack of a material good–which happens to be what Direct Relief focuses on.

However, these are the times when you see true ingenuity come out as well. Dr. Layese showed us the pediatric intensive care unit where they did have one working incubator. However, whenever they had to transfer babies to another facility, they never had a good way to keep the baby warm – that is, until the Israelis came with their cases of meals ready-to-eat (MREs).

As I now know after eating my first MRE in Tacloban, they come with a heating element that activates when surrounded by water. Well, Dr. Layese realized that same heater that is usually discarded from the MRE after it’s used could be used inside the incubator to keep the baby warm in transit. So now when they transfer babies, they carefully surround them with these mini heaters to keep them warm on the two hour journey to Cebu city.

The scale of needs is enormous right now.  Direct Relief has been using our reports from the field to put in specific requests for medicines to our pharmaceutical supporters.  At headquarters, the team is preparing the third and largest mass shipment for this response yet – 125 pallets worth more than $4 million – that will ship out via FedEx airlift on Saturday. I know that these items will be put to good use once on the ground.

The post From the Philippines: Emergency Care in Cebu appeared first on Direct Relief.

Seven-year-old Lucienne, an orphan in Haiti, is receiving treatment this week for osteomyelitis, a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection of the bone, thanks to the continued support from Direct Relief supporters.

At the hospital in Haiti where Lucienne was initially taken for surgery, patients are treated for free, however, they have to buy all of their own supplies – even the gloves for the doctor. The orphanage where she lives could not afford the supplies needed, preventing her from getting much-needed care.

Upon learning her story while I was in the country this Saturday, I cut into one of the hurricane preparedness modules filled with critical medicines and medical supplies and pre-positioned at Direct Relief’s warehouse in Haiti at the start of hurricane season (June 1). Though intended to care for thousands of people in the event of natural disaster, the modules can also be used for other emergencies like this one.

I sent over the supplies they needed for her: antibiotics, saline, sterile water, gauze, antiseptic wipes, nutritional supplies, pain relievers, ringers, and other items.

Prior to this, she had been in and out of multiple surgeries because the wound continued to get infected. Osteomyelitis is a long-term issue requiring extensive antibiotics and a minimum of a 4-6 week hospital stay until the patient is healed. The dirty living conditions many people deal with in Haiti make it easy for the bacteria to spread to people at risk.

At the first hospital she stayed at, Lucienne’s bed was sitting balanced on rocks and was completely rusted through with no mattress, until we got one for her. Rats crawled over patients and families who were sleeping on the ground. We had to hold a flashlight for the doctor to put in the IV because there were no lights in the room where she was laying next to dozens of other people.

I arranged for her to be transferred to the Project Medishare-run facility, Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port au Prince, one of Direct Relief’s partners. With their good care and our stock of supplies, she should be taken care of for a while.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time— I’m just not always there to witness it.

This experience has affected me a great deal, it’s benefited this girl a great deal, and really, everyone who is a part of Direct Relief has been involved in making this happen. This is why we do what we do.

The post Pre-positioned Medicines Give Haitian Girl A Chance at Life appeared first on Direct Relief.

The large-scale destruction combined with roughly 1,200 aftershocks in the region has forced tens of thousands of people to stay outdoors for fear of further structural collapse. Early reports indicate over 350 people are injured, 22 missing, and over 3.4 million people affected by the earthquake.

Additionally – as is usually the case with earthquakes – damage to roads, bridges, and buildings makes it hard for responders to access those in need of food, water, shelter, and medical assistance. Furthermore, the destruction of homes will lead to long-term needs for shelter materials, personal care items, and chronic medications that people can no longer access.

The ten-pallet emergency module that has been put together by Direct Relief’s Emergency Response Team and the Asia America Initiative, has supplies that can be specifically used to treat people who have been injured and will require long-term care as they remain cut off from their homes. Part of the shipment also contains antibiotic supplies that will stay in the northern part of the country to treat a Leptospirosis – or bacterial disease – outbreak resulting from contaminated flood waters in Olongapo City.

Asia America Initiative is a U.S. 501c3 that seeks to create and support long-term sustainable medical systems and provide emergency relief in countries throughout Asia. AAI’s medical focus in the Philippines has primarily consisted of supporting health organizations treating cancer and rare diseases, in addition to humanitarian relief for communities experiencing violence and natural disasters.

Their longtime relationship with the Philippine Department of Health and long-term cooperation with local military civil relations units, enables them to deliver vital medicines and equipment to the poorest and hardest-to-reach communities.

Direct Relief thanks its generous corporate supporters who made this relief effort possible: Abbott, AbbVie, Allergan, Inc, Baxter International Inc., BD, Boehringer Ingelheim Cares, Cera Products, Inc., Covidien, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Ethicon, Inc., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Company, Merck & Co., Inc., Microflex, Mylan Laboratories Inc., Prestige Brands, and  Teva Pharmaceuticals.

The post Responding to the 7.2 Magnitude Earthquake in the Philippines appeared first on Direct Relief.

These modules will be specifically prepared to treat the most common medical problems that occur when large numbers of people are displaced due to widespread flooding. They are also tailored based on feedback from partners working on the ground in India who wrote:

About 10.2 million people are directly affected by the mammoth fury of both the cyclone and subsequent flooding, which is far worse than the cyclone. People lost their homes, possessions, livestock and crops. About 0.2 million people are homeless and now living in the streets and they do not have safe drinking water nor sufficient food.

The cyclone has destroyed electric grids, poles, and transformers, etc. so for many days people are without electricity. As a result, water supply is also stopped. Diseases like cholera, diarrhea, malaria and even snake bites are seen.

The affected people are desperate for candles, flashlights, medicines, food (dry), safe drinking water, tablets for water purification, and blankets. Relief work has begun however there are many places where relief is yet to reach.

The modules  will be flown to the Bhubaneswar Airport in Odisha state where the cyclone caused extensive damage. From there, Direct Relief partner organizations will dispatch them into the field to treat people most affected.

Direct Relief also requested support from its pharmaceutical partners in India who offered to make their local inventories available as needed. Additionally, Direct Relief is prepared to ship its stockpile of antibiotics that are pre-positioned in Europe specifically for this type of emergency.

The total wholesale value of the five modules exceeds $1.3 million.

Direct Relief has extensive experience in providing cyclone and hurricane relief. Since 2007, Direct Relief has pre-positioned hurricane modules in six Caribbean countries and in 50 clinics in the United States to prepare at-risk communities for emergencies.

The post Mobilizing Aid for People Affected by Cyclone Phailin appeared first on Direct Relief.

With her husband slowly recovering from an accident and unable to help her provide for their six children, her loss of income began to affect her family’s well-being. And without money coming in, Anne Marie couldn’t afford treatment for her condition.

But things turned around for Anne Marie when she met a doctor supported by Alcon, a medical company specializing in eye care, who did surgery on her eye, restoring her vision. She is able to work again.

This World Sight Day (today) we celebrate Anne Marie and the more than 100,000 people in Haiti have improved vision with help from a collaboration formed in 2012 between Alcon Laboratories, the Haitian Society of Ophthalmologists, and Direct Relief.

The joint program provides cataract and glaucoma surgeries and other essential eye care procedures – free-of-charge – to  thousands of people who are blind or have impaired vision in Haiti. In 2012 alone, more than 72,000 patients were seen and over 6,700 surgeries were performed.

This collaborative partnership works with six eye care facilities in Haiti with the goal of cutting treatable blindness in half over the course of the next three years. It is especially needed in Haiti as the country has one of the highest rates of blindness or reduced vision due to cataracts in the Caribbean region, with estimates ranging from 40,000 to over 60,000 people suffering from the disease.

The six participating facilities, including the University General Hospital in Port au Prince and University Justinien Hospital in Cap Haitian, are now able to provide the high quality eye care for their patients that had not been possible in Haiti prior to the start of this program.

This partnership has  garnered over $7 million (wholesale) worth of eye care supplies and equipment from Alcon Laboratories, comprising a wide array of materials that are essential for treating cataracts, which typically require surgical removal and replacement of the eye’s lens.

Additional materials remain in Direct Relief’s warehouse in Port au Prince to be distributed to the over 100 visiting surgical eye teams supported by Alcon every year who provide essential eye care and surgical eye procedures to residents in more rural areas of the country.

Instead of bringing the bulky materials with them when they fly to Haiti, these ophthalmologists and eye doctors are now able to access the surgical items they need when they arrive into Haiti from Direct Relief’s warehouse.

By providing these essential items to hospitals around the country and the visiting surgical teams, people in Haiti like Anne Marie Moreau can live healthier, more productive lives with better access to free, high-quality surgical eye care.

The post Restoring Sight, Restoring Lives in Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

In response to the urgent need, Direct Relief partnered with Women and Health Alliance International (WAHA), providing the organization a $50,000 grant in November that helped Banadir Hospital – the largest maternal and child health care referral hospital in Somalia – open a fully-functioning 60-bed fistula ward that adheres to international norms of quality, dramatically increasing the capacity for treatment.

Located in the heart of the capital city, Mogadishu, the services now available for women with obstetric fistula in Somalia are momentous for a country that has been plagued by civil war, drought and famine and is now considered one of the most dangerous places to give birth in the world.

Just three months after the ward opened in January, 80 women had already been admitted and 57 fistula repair surgeries had been performed. Using funds from this grant from Direct Relief, WAHA has also trained nine Somali fistula care staff, including two OB/GYNs, two anesthetist technicians, three nurses, and two counselors to help the women reintegrate after their surgeries have been completed.

Obstetric fistula is caused by prolonged and obstructed labor and creates a hole in the birth canal that, if left untreated, can cause chronic incontinence and leakage of body fluids.

As a result of the prolonged labor, most often the baby is stillborn and the hole that is created in the birth canal creates a severely debilitating and tragically ostracizing condition for each woman with the condition.

Direct Relief is committed to supporting women around the world who are affected by this devastating condition and is extremely grateful for partners like WAHA who are furthering these efforts.

Roughly two million women in the developing world women suffer with this devastating – but largely treatable – problem and an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 cases develop each year, far surpassing the global capacity for treatment. The condition primarily affects impoverished women that don’t have access to quality maternity care services, including a skilled provider at birth and access to emergency care.

Read more about Direct Relief’s program to restore health and hope to women living with obstetric fistula around the world.

The post Grant Helps Women in Somalia Access Fistula Repair and Regain Dignity appeared first on Direct Relief.

That’s why Direct Relief teamed up with Palantir Technologies and veteran volunteer organization, Team Rubicon, and made a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative in February to use Palantir technology to coordinate and better inform emergency response efforts.

After the tornadoes in Oklahoma, Direct Relief and Team Rubicon used Palantir mobile devices to perform door-to-door assessments and determine if residents had an immediate need for health care or needed structural repairs to make their homes habitable again.

All of these responses were then aggregated and prioritized by Palantir to inform Direct Relief and Team Rubicon where to send the needed medical supplies and the strike teams to repair those homes that need it.

As a result of this collaboration, Direct Relief has already sent 37 shipments of essential medications and first-aid supplies valued at nearly $800,000 to ten health centers treating people who were affected by the disaster. Team Rubicon has been able to perform assessments of over 2,181 homes and made 200 homes inhabitable again within 8 days after the tornado hit.

To see the efforts in action on the ground, please watch this brief video.

The post Collaborating with Palantir, Team Rubicon to Help Oklahomans in Need appeared first on Direct Relief.

Fundacion Solidaria del Divino Nino Jesus (FSDNJ), is located in Santiago, in the northern part of the Dominican Republic. This organization was founded by Padre Eduardo Collado nearly five years ago to support the neediest children in the area with education, schooling, and nutrition. It has grown tremendously since that time and now supports a network of 175 medical facilities with essential medical supplies donated by Direct Relief that patients would otherwise go without.

These medical facilities report that they only get about 20 percent of the medications and  supplies they need to treat their patients from the country’s pharmaceutical program while the remaining 80 percent has to be purchased by their patients—the vast majority of whom cannot afford to do so, thereby going without their medications.

And because their network is so large, it is also extremely diverse. In my two-day visit traveling with Padre Eduardo through the area, we visited eight different sites which included everything from large public hospitals to rural community clinics to retirement homes, hospices, physical therapy centers, dentists, burn units, pediatric cancer centers, orthopedic hospitals, and the intensive care unit (ICU) at the largest hospital in Santiago.  All of these facilities have been at the receiving end of the donated medications that were sent by Direct Relief to FSDNJ and were extremely grateful for the support they have been receiving on behalf of their patients.

After two days in Santiago with FSDNJ, I took the two-hour bus ride from Santiago to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, to visit another Direct Relief beneficiary, The Batey Relief Alliance (BRA). Founded in 1997, BRA works to support the populations inside the bateyes, which are communities that reside inside sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic that are comprised mainly of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent.

The Batey Relief Alliance has set up a medical center in the Monte Plata region in central Dominican Republic which is home to thousands of migrant workers living in the surrounding bateyes. Living and working conditions inside the bateyes are often extremely impoverished, with limited access to health care, running water, electricity and sanitary facilities so the introduction of this extremely clean and well-functioning medical center is a huge benefit to this population who would otherwise not have access to quality medical care.

With the support of regular donations of medications and supplies from Direct Relief, this clinic is able to provide medical, dental, and eye care to roughly 150 people per day regardless of their ability to pay.

The post Notes from the Field: Dominican Republic appeared first on Direct Relief.

The need for maternal care in Haiti is high. According to a U.S. Agency for International Development report, 75 percent of births in northern Haiti take place at home without skilled birth attendants, with 31 percent of maternal mortalities as a result of eclampsia, or severe seizures, and 22 percent from hemorrhaging, or profuse bleeding, as a result of both a lack of attendance or underqualified attendance. Poorly-trained Traditional Birth Attendants fail to refer high-risk pregnancies to hospitals and often pregnant women cannot get transport to the hospital.

In response to these devastating statistics, Haiti Hospital Appeal and Direct Relief joined forces to enable women to deliver safely in northern Haiti using the following four-pronged approach:

1)      Antenatal care and reproductive health: Working in the communities, mobile staff will work directly with vulnerable pregnant women, and also through the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) already working there, to increase the access that pregnant women have to antenatal care, through screening and education, allowing high-risk pregnancies to be identified earlier and childhood disabilities reduced.

2)      Obstetrical emergency response: There is a need for an expedient way for emergencies to be transferred to hospital in order for maternal deaths to be reduced. TBAs will be trained to recognize and refer difficult cases to ensure a safe birthing environment through safe birthing kits and pictorial record keeping.

3)      Childbirth care: A modern operating unit is staffed by professionals trained to carry out complicated deliveries, such as caesarean sections, forcep and vacuum deliveries.

4)      Newborn and postpartum care: A 6-bed neonatal unit will provide specialised care to premature babies, offering incubators, oxygen and appropriate medications.

Through a $50,000 grant from Direct Relief, Haiti Hospital Appeal has been able to launch their mobile maternity outreach services to provide the essential pre-natal care and screenings to pregnant mothers who cannot access the hospital. They have also used these funds to set up a phone bank and ambulance service for those women facing severe obstetrical emergencies. This service is not only saving the lives of mothers and babies, but resulting in healthier babies whose mothers received the pre-natal care they needed.

Additionally, after receiving another $72,000 grant from Direct Relief, the hospital was able to purchase all of the equipment needed for the maternity operating theater. Since April 2012 when they began performing surgeries, their three OB/GYNs have performed more than 100 caesarian sections and treated more than 2,500 women facing everything from post-partum hemorrhages to cancer of the uterus to pre-eclampsia and eclampsia.

On a recent trip I made to the hospital in February, I saw the nurse cleaning the operating theater after performing a successful hysterectomy, a procedure that would have been unheard of just a year earlier and is not even available in the majority of hospitals in Haiti. None of this would have been possible before and indeed, the majority of those women may have likely died without the availability of these services. We are honored to work with Haiti Hospital Appeal and support this important work.

The post Supporting High-Quality Maternity Care in Northern Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

The course is taught by Mother Health International, a nonprofit organization that received a $30,000 grant from Direct Relief to hold a series of training sessions at five different birthing centers in Haiti over the course of a year.

This training course will provide more than 100 hours of education to 180 students who will learn the essential skills of: assessing pregnancy and prenatal complications; performing safe deliveries; and proper postnatal care.

These birth attendants will attend a combined total of 3,000 births per year,  so it is essential that they have the proper training to handle a normal delivery as well as any complications that may arise during the pregnancy or delivery.

Below is a dispatch from the first training course held in Haiti from the Traditional Midwife and Head Trainer, Clare Loprinzi.

Day 1

The first of the three-day workshops sponsored by Direct Relief began in Jacmel this week with a strong group of 26 Haitian women. The group was a mix of traditional midwives and nurses who all came to learn about the practice of natural birth combined with the best of Western modalities.

Each group brought their own knowledge and experiences to the training–the matrons shared knowledge of the herbs, natural medicines, and the massages that are used in birth while the nurses shared valuable knowledge of universal precautions and important blood work needed in birth along with vital checks.

Midwives and trainers Clare and Marzia brought vibrant energy as they outlined the basics of the midwifery model of care in addition to teaching the skills of taking blood pressure and other vital signs.

Day 2

Day two of the Jacmel workshop had a birth happening in the room next to us. We learned, danced and drummed the beat of the heart. As the woman was in labor we talked about what we would do with the use of movement to open the body to the greatest ability, the sounds (we sang them to the mom and baby) and herbal medicine.

I was blessed to come into the birth as the baby emerged into the world during our lunch break. In reality, we were all part of learning and the birth of the baby all together. The magic of birth was present in all of us.

The workshop also talked about the harder aspects of giving birth in Haiti such as how to help those women who are afraid to give birth due to the low economic conditions that they live with. We remember to laugh a lot as we deal with these deeply rooted problems that need to be dealt with, find solutions to them, unite the women, and regain their birth rights.

Day 3

On the last day of the workshop, all 26 women again returned. It started out with the nurses again teaching the vital skills to those who needed to practice them. We studied more ancient medicines and modalities that are used in traditional birth and discussed the need for improved nutrition and prenatal vitamins for pregnant women.

There was time for questions which brought up again the education of prevention of bleeding and high blood pressure which affects too many women in low economic conditions. We ended by making a commitment to continue the training and workshops for these women at the birthing center in Jacmel.

Thanks to Direct Relief there will be two more training sessions throughout the year to continue the education for these women whereby upon completion they will receive certification and a birthing kit of their own.

The post Midwife Training Course Begins in Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

The organization was founded in 1999 by family practice physician, Tracee Laing following her first medical mission to Haiti. During Dr. Tracee’s first trip to Haiti in 1997, she was touched not only by the tremendous medical needs of the people, but also by the beautiful art the Haitians created.

Realizing the suitcases she and her teams used to transport the medications needed for their medical missions would be empty at the end of the trip, she decided to purchase art from the local Haitian artists to bring back to the U.S. and then organized a silent auction of the art in which she raised enough money to fund subsequent medical trips to Haiti and create Healing Art Missions.

After the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, Healing Art Missions realized they needed to open a full-time medical clinic to replace the community health center they opened in Dumay in 2000. They built a new primary health care clinic, Centre de Santé, which serves a population of 20,000 in Dumay, a rural subsistence farming community northeast of capital, Port-au-Prince.

Centre de Santé provides five-day-a-week access to doctors, laboratory testing, and a pharmacy. Additionally, they offer the Noel Dusan Eye Clinic, vaccine clinics, family planning, prenatal and infant wellness programs, a nutrition program, and clean water programs.  Many programs are free to the community. The cost to see a physician and necessary prescriptions is equivalent to about 60 cents U.S., though no one is turned away if they do not have money.

The clinics are staffed entirely by Haitians. Dr. Jean Fritz Jacques – one of only 100 general surgeons currently working in Haiti – serves as the medical director. In total, 13 full-time medical staff and 11 support staff work at the clinic.

Direct Relief has been supporting Healing Art Missions since December 2010 and to date has provided the organization seven shipments of medicines and supplies totaling more than $372,000. With the support, the nonprofit was able to provide a wide array of medical and health services on an annual cash budget of just under $200,000.

“Without the substantial material support of Direct Relief, our abilities and impact in providing the quality of care we have achieved would be significantly diminished,” said a representative from Healing Art Missions.

Additionally, in 2012 with the help of Direct Relief they:

• performed 224 minor procedures
• gave 2925 vaccinations
• performed 3643 laboratory tests
• enrolled 100 participants per month in the family planning program
• performed 261 eye exams at the Noel Dusan Eye Clinic

Direct Relief is happy to support the work of organizations like Healing Art Missions who are helping thousands of Haitians in need access quality, affordable medical care.

The post Partner Spotlight: Healing Art Missions appeared first on Direct Relief.

This program will result in safer deliveries for thousands of women and reduce the overall maternal mortality rate in Haiti while promoting the belief that within every healthy and gentle birth, there is a long-lasting, positive benefit to women and children and the development of their community.

The need for skilled birth attendants in Haiti is high. Childbirth is the leading cause of death for women in Haiti. There are 670 maternal deaths per 100,000 in the country—the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Additionally, more than 75 percent of births take place at home using birth attendants, who often have little formal training. Their role on the front lines of deliveries means they are critical health care providers and crucial to community restoration efforts.

This grant from Direct Relief will be provided to Mother Health International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to respond and provide relief to pregnant women and children in areas of disaster, war and extreme economic poverty. They are committed to reducing maternal and infant mortality rates by creating culturally competent, sustainable birth centers using the Traditional Midwifery Model of Care and by providing ongoing education and training to traditional birth attendants and midwives while respecting Haitian culture and customs.

This year-long training course will provide more than 100 hours of education to each student utilizing lectures, workshops, hands-on skills training, and videos to teach the birth attendants essential skills such as assessing pregnancy and prenatal complications; performing safe deliveries; and proper post-natal care.

The 180 birth attendants working in these six communities attend a combined total of 3,000 births per year. Therefore, it is essential that they have the proper training to handle a normal delivery as well as any complications that may arise during the pregnancy or delivery. Unfortunately, the majority of birth attendants in Haiti have not ever received this training or continuing training in the area.

This program will take place at birthing centers in the communities of: Jacmel, Port au Prince, Ouanamithe, Port de Paix, La Tortue, and Pignon.

Direct Relief has already provided the birthing centers in these communities with the upgraded equipment needed to care for complicated deliveries and perform caesarian sections. Now the birth attendants working in the area will be trained to recognize the need for these enhanced medical activities while also giving them the skills they need to perform safe in-home deliveries as well.

The education these women receive will not only lower the maternal mortality rates throughout the country, but will also enable them to advance their careers as birth attendants and midwives through this accredited training program.

The post Training Skilled Birth Attendants in Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

Recently, Direct Relief donated a truckload of essential medications and supplies to Haiti Help Med Plus, a nonprofit organization founded in 2003 by Haitian expatriates with the goal of improving the quality of life and participating in the sustainable socioeconomic rebirth of Haiti.

Haiti Help Med Plus works to supply all local health centers with equipment and materials needed to treat the underserved patients in the area. This recent shipment of donated medications and supplies will be used primarily to treat people with cholera and babies with fever and respiratory infection. It was successfully delivered to six different facilities in the region.

Since 2003, the organization has successfully renovated and expanded the hospital in Paillant near Miragoane, a coastal town in western Haiti. This hospital was built by Reynolds Aluminum, Inc in 1955 and was the only hospital in the Nippes region. As a 10 bed hospital, it offered free services in internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, maternity, radiology and laboratory.

According to Dr. Ralph Gousse, founder of Haiti Help Med Plus, “My first lessons in medicine were learned right there. People came from all over to be treated there.” However, the hospital lost its financial support in 1982 and by 2003 it had transformed slowly into a small health center with no electricity, no water, no toilets, no radiology and no surgery, a rotten ceiling and a leaking roof.

Haiti Help Med Plus renovated the building and took on the challenge of adding a new building to the current site with a new surgical suite, a dental clinic, an ophthalmology clinic, two bathrooms, a large waiting room and conference room, a new archive section and three new exam rooms. This whole new hospital was inaugurated July 24, 2010.

Direct Relief is happy to deliver essential medicines and supplies to Haiti Help Med Plus and support their mission of improving the quality of life for those living in rural Haiti.

The post Supplies Delivered to Six Health Centers in Rural Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

According to Ministry of Health reports, during the week of Nov. 26^th-Dec. 2^nd, there were 126 confirmed cases of cholera and 11 deaths as a result of the disease. There have not been as many deaths from cholera since November 2011. Since the beginning of the outbreak in 2010, more than 7,500 people have died and more than 500,000 have been affected.

The shipment of oral rehydration, IV fluids, and IV catheters valued at $46,000 (wholesale) contains enough supplies to treat more than 1,000 patients with severe dehydration. It was packed in Direct Relief’s warehouse in Haiti’s capital, Port au Prince, and delivered by Direct Relief staff to Konbit Sante, a long-term partner in Haiti.

Konbit Sante works in collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health and other partners to build local capacity in all aspects of the health system – from door-to-door community outreach programs, to strengthening community health centers, to improving care at the regional referral hospital.

Direct Relief continues to stock the essential medications and supplies in its central depot in Port au Prince so it can quickly respond to any immediate needs that are requested by its partner medical providers across country.

The post Aid Continues in Haiti as Cholera Outbreaks Climb appeared first on Direct Relief.

Since the storm hit nearly one month ago, thousands of new cholera cases have been reported. The International Organization for Migration confirmed nearly 3,600 cases, but the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP) has recorded estimates of more than 9,000, a 46 percent increase in the number of cases compared to the three weeks before Sandy.

The growing number of people seeking care for cholera coupled with the hurricane’s destruction of 61 cholera treatment units has weakened much of the country’s medical response infrastructure.

Other health issues are on the rise as well. Dr. Kethia of Visitation Clinic in Haiti said that since the hurricane they’ve seen increases in patients seeking care as well as increases in various diseases and conditions including: diarrhea, gastritis, undernourishment, fever, severe dehydration, intestinal parasitosis, urinary tract infections and influenza.

With additional medicines from Direct Relief’s Hurricane Modules, partners can continue treating patients despite challenges. Direct Relief positioned eight hurricane modules in-country for use in emergencies at the beginning of hurricane season, June 1.  So far, all but one of the modules have been opened by partners in urgent need of supplies.

Saint Therese hospital in Miragoane, which serves a population of 300,000  in Southwest Haiti, reported that as of last week they had 33 cases of cholera, up from six before Sandy. Hard hit by Sandy, the additional supplies are allowing them to maintain a broad range of services including  OB/GYN, surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, orthopedics and a cholera treatment center.

The post Supplies Treat Rising Number of Cholera Cases in Haiti After Sandy appeared first on Direct Relief.

Earlier this month, Direct Relief provided a $50,000 grant to support essential obstetric fistula repair surgeries for women who are living with this devastating and debilitating condition in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

Direct Relief again partnered with the Women and Health Alliance International (WAHA), an international nonprofit organization committed to improving maternal and neonatal health in disadvantaged communities throughout Africa, to help carry out the goals of the grant on the ground in Somalia, where only 1/3 of all births are attended by skilled personnel.

WAHA aims to improve maternity care to reduce the extremely high rates of maternal mortality and provide fistula repair services for women in the capital city of Mogadishu by training local health providers; establishing an ambulance service; upgrading the quality of equipment within the biggest child and maternity hospital in Somalia, Benadir Hospital; creating a midwifery school; and creating a 60-bed facility dedicated to fistula repair.

To fulfill this three-year project, WAHA is also working closely with Somali Ministry of Health, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and The Fistula Foundation.

These quality maternal and neonatal health services, including obstetric fistula treatment, are essential for host and internally displaced populations in Mogadishu. Since 2007, more than 2.2 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result of a raging insurgency combined with extreme food shortages because of an extensive drought and high rates of inflation.

The $50,000 grant from Direct Relief will help enable WAHA to carry out this vital work and will be used for the following essential interventions:

• $22,000—train nine Somali fistula care staff to fully take over the fistula repair operations at Benadir Hospital. This includes: two obstetrician-gynecologists, two anesthetist technicians, one operating theater nurse, two nurses, two social support/reintegration officers
• $18,000—perform 24 fistula repair operations for women who would otherwise be unable to pay for the procedure
• $10,000—repair and refurbishment of the 60 bed fistula treatment department including fixing holes in the roof, replacing electrical circuits and plumbing, rebuilding the sanitation facilities

Obstetric fistula is caused by prolonged and obstructed labor and creates a hole in the birth canal that, if left untreated, can cause chronic incontinence and bodily fluid leakage. Often the baby is lost and the hole that is created in the birth canal creates a severely debilitating and tragically ostracizing condition for each woman with the condition.

Roughly two million women in the developing world women suffer with this devastating – but fixable – problem and an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 cases develop each year, far surpassing the global capacity for treatment. The condition primarily results from a lack of quality maternity care services.

Together, Direct Relief and Women and Health Alliance will be able to reduce the number of women suffering from obstetric fistula in Mogadishu.

The post Restoring Health and Hope for Women with Fistula in Somalia appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief’s partner, Visitation Hospital in Haiti, has saved lives and  provided care to more than 450 patients with the contents of  their hurricane preparedness module and anticipate they will treat hundreds more in the coming days with health needs on the rise after Hurricane Sandy.

The module was sent to the Direct Relief warehouse in Port-au-Prince at the start of hurricane season so that it could be quickly utilized by our Haitian partners in those first critical hours and days after a hurricane strikes, without waiting for additional aid shipments, which are often delayed by logistical challenges. Each module contains enough medicines and supplies to treat up to 5,000 people for one month.

After Hurricane Sandy, roads were completely washed out and yet the hospital, which treats patients in the southwest of Haiti regardless of their ability to pay, saw an increase in the number of patients needing to be treated.

“Last week, a student came to the clinic in the afternoon with a stomach pain as she did not really eat in the morning before going to school, she was crying and could not breathe properly. When she came we quickly revived her with some Ensures donated by Direct Relief  and gave her some medicines for her stomach,” reported Riphard Serent of Visitation Hospital.

Other medical interventions the hurricane module supported since its delivery last week was the delivery of a baby, treatment of severe dysentery and malnutrition, he said.

Additionally, he said there is a report of a cholera outbreak in Anse-a-Veau just ten miles south of the hospital. Products to treat cholera are especially useful at  now, as the cholera treatment center was damaged Hurricane Sandy and patients are now seeking care at Visitation Clinic as an alternative.

Items included in the hurricane preparedness  module such as IV fluids of lactated ringers have already offered life saving interventions for patients with cholera. One patient who arrived at the clinic unconscious last week is now well, after physicians administered IV Solutions included in the pack, said Serent.

Direct Relief extends a special thanks to all the corporate partners whose product donations have made our hurricane preparedness program a true success at saving time and saving lives.

The post Pre-Positioned Medicines Save Lives in Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

Visitation Hospital has been a longstanding partner of Direct Relief and treats patients in the southwest of Haiti without regard to their ability to pay. After Hurricane Sandy, their roads were completely washed out and yet they saw an increase in the number of patients needing to be treated. Additionally, there is a report of a cholera outbreak in Anse-a-Veau just ten miles south of the hospital and Visitation will likely be treating these patients to save lives and help stop the spread of the outbreak.
Direct Relief had pre-positioned this module in its warehouse in Port au Prince for just this scenario as Haiti has been hit by hurricanes regularly over the past few years.  Valued at over $50,000, the hurricane module contains enough antibiotics, wound care supplies, nutritionals, food products, oral re-hydration, needles, syringes and personal care products  to treat up to 5,000 people.

In Port au Prince, St. Luke’s Hospital also made use of the hurricane module that was provided to them by Direct Relief in June in preparation of hurricane season. Their newly completed St. Mary’s Hospital in Cite Soleil serves the roughly 300,000 inhabitants of this densely populated, low-lying slum situated on the waterfront. Characterized as the most challenging and dangerous places to live in the Western Hemisphere, Cite Soleil has a total lack of infrastructure, housing, and sanitation and thus makes residents extremely vulnerable when large storms comes through. Hurricane Sandy caused havoc in the area, bring rushing water and mud into homes, destroying whatever food stocks were available in markets, and spreading cholera.

Wynn Walent of St. Luke’s said, “Thanks to the hurricane modules being stored at St Luke’s storage depot in Tabarre, our team had access to all of the supplies necessary to respond quickly. We were able to distribute Ensure and nutritional bars to fight hunger and Pedialyte and Ringer’s lactate to fight against the dehydration that runs rampant when cholera spreads.  In addition, the IV catheters, IV tubing, and needles prove life saving in dealing with the most severe cholera cases”.

The post Haiti Hospitals Receive Sandy Relief appeared first on Direct Relief.

Because the rains and mudslides destroyed roads and bridges, many people have been cut off from accessing any medical services or clean water sources. The lack of access to health care treatment combined with floodwaters could cause a spike in cholera cases and deaths.

The recent tropical storm conditions have likely spread Vibrio cholera, the bacterium that causes cholera, into many water sources, causing poor sanitary conditions. Since Haiti has few functional sanitation systems that can contain and safely process fecal material, the spread of human feces throughout watersheds make further outbreaks highly likely. Cholera can be easily treated with intravenous (IV)  therapy and antibiotics, but requires immediate medical attention and can kill within days if not treated.

Direct Relief is among the largest providers of medical aid to Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake—1,000 tons, $82 million in medicines and supplies to 115 Haitian healthcare facilities serving four million patients. And Direct Relief is experienced with fighting cholera in Haiti. During the cholera outbreak a year after the earthquake, Direct Relief provided enough medical supplies and equipment to treat 100,000 people and prevent further loss of life.

In any major disaster, information is hard to access because electricity, telephone, and radio communications are cut off. This is exacerbated in Haiti where the infrastructure is already poor. While there have been many rumors of increased cholera cases, it is hard to confirm those numbers. We are doing everything possible to get supplies to our partners, specifically in the southeast of Haiti, where they were hardest hit.

We have contacted partners in this area and offered one of our remaining Direct Relief hurricane modules to Visitation Hospital in Petite Riviere de Nippes. The international modules contain enough medicines and supplies to treat 5,000 people for one month. Fifteen modules were pre-positioned in seven at-risk countries, including Haiti, at the beginning of hurricane season. Visitation Hospital responded:

“Thanks for thinking of us. As of noon  Monday we have not received any cholera patients, but we have gotten a report that there is a an major outbreak in Anse-a-Veau  (about 10 miles west of us). Right now we are trying to confirm this. I really appreciate you sent me a list of the hurricane module contents, and I can see quickly that it contains some interesting medicines and lab or medical supplies that we can you use in aftermath of Sandy, as there’s an increase on the number of patients seen and the number of diagnoses also per patient.”

The Director of Maison de Naissance, a birthing center in Torbeck, southern Haiti also responded to our offer of assistance:

“Thank you for checking in. Maison de Naissance’s biggest challenge right now is electricity as our generator is having serious issues. Although our doors remained open throughout the entire storm (and women did indeed brave the elements to come and deliver their babies!), the staff worked without power. During the day now we are again powered by our solar panels, but because of our broken generator, electricity is not available overnight. As of yet, we have not heard of cholera cases in our immediate zone of service. The radio is reporting many cases near Maniche (South Department).”  

The emergency response team will continue to reach out to partners in Haiti and work to expand health care access throughout the country.

To support Direct Relief’s emergency relief and recovery efforts, donate here.

The post Hurricane Sandy: Fighting the Spread of Cholera in Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

All four partners in Haiti who received Direct Relief’s Hurricane Modules at the beginning of hurricane season (June 1) have been advised to use them as needed and two additional modules located in the Direct Relief warehouse on the ground in Haiti have been made available to any other affected partners. The modules contain enough medicine to support up to 5,000 people for one month. Recently arrived shipments to Haiti containing hundreds of liters of IV fluids are also available to anyone in need.

In certain areas, hospitals and cholera treatment centers have become flooded and in some cases, completely washed away. High-flowing rivers have caused many residents to be cut off from services as roads and bridges have been washed out. People have lost their homes, livestock, and crops due to flooding. Landslides in the capital, Port au Prince, have caused some damage and people in highly unstable areas have been moved to shelters. Most businesses and government buildings are closed today. Immaculate Conception Hospital in Les Cayes was flooded and 51 patients were evacuated to nearby Brenda Strafford Hospital.

Ms. Alta Jean Baptiste, Civil Protection Directorate of the Haiti Minister of Interior, declared in a press conference “…we evacuated 5.665 people to temporary shelters […] there are 1,372 houses destroyed, particularly in the department of South and in the zone of Nippes and of the Grande Anse particularly on the coastal […] we have four municipalities in the department of South-East who are severely flooded, all the municipalities of the department of Nippes are under water.”

News sources are reporting greater than expected likelihood of severe weather events along the U.S. East Coast, possibly making landfall as a tropical storm near Philadelphia and affecting coastal areas from Florida to Maine. Direct Relief stands ready to support healthcare facilities affected by severe weather.

The post Hurricane Sandy Floods Hospitals in Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

This grant was provided to WAHA at the height of the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa to support their work in Dadaab, Kenya, where thousands of people were arriving daily into refugee camps from neighboring Somalia.

WAHA began working at the Dadaab hospital, the only referral hospital for the over 800,000 residents of the Garissa district (including 500,000 in the Dadaab refugee camp), in 2011.

Their focus was to strengthen the delivery of maternal and neonatal health care services, including emergency obstetric care, through capacity building and support in terms of human and material resources. By providing these quality reproductive health services, WAHA would achieve their goal of reducing the extremely high rates of maternal mortality in the region.

With support from Direct Relief, WAHA was able to:

• Recruit eight medical personnel from Nairobi to increase the level of training for the medical staff at Dadaab Hospital, including a midwife, OB/GYN and anesthetist
• Increase the number of beds in the maternity ward of the hospital from 23 to 75
• Strengthen the referral services for emergency obstetric situations by creating an ambulance service to transport women from the camps and health centers to the hospital
• Ensure better access and quality of maternal healthcare services by purchasing medical equipment such as microscopes, an ultrasound machine, a sterilization machine, sutures, and essential medications for complicated deliveries

Additionally, in April 2012, WAHA received an ocean freight container from Direct Relief carrying over 10,000 pounds of essential medications and supplies such as gloves, thermometers, IV solutions, oral rehydration solution, hospital beds, and autoclaves valued at $192,000 (wholesale) to support their work in Dadaab.

WAHA continues to work in the Dadaab hospital to upgrade the level of care for expectant mothers facing difficult deliveries. Over the past year, WAHA has cared for thousands of women and delivered hundreds of babies in the Dadaab hospital, now the primary access point of care for residents of the largest refugee camp in the world.

The post Strengthening Maternal Health Care in the Horn of Africa appeared first on Direct Relief.

The campaign’s success comes as the country looks back on the introduction of cholera two Octobers ago, which quickly grew to an epidemic. The rapid, tragic spread of cholera in Haiti is a sharp reminder of the importance of immunizations against communicable diseases, particularly for children who are often most vulnerable.

Direct Relief played a pivotal role in assisting Haiti’s Ministry of Health in their monumental campaign— which began in April as a certification effort— to vaccinate 2.5 million children against measles, rubella, and polio.

Launched under the theme, “Protect our world, get vaccinated,” the campaign sought to vaccinate all children under age 10 against measles, rubella, and polio—free-of-charge. Additionally, vitamin A was provided at not cost to children and pregnant women to combat malnutrition as well as albendozale to protect against parasites.

Working with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the medical device company Beckton-Dickinson (BD), a long-time Direct Relief donor, Direct Relief was able to obtain and distribute over 700,000 needles and syringes to be used in the campaign.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services thanked Direct Relief  and BD for outstanding participation in the immunization campaign and the impact it will have on the region.

“Your assistance not only benefits Haiti’s national immunization program but also the region of the Americas in its effort to protect the achievement of its elimination of the measles and rubella to date. The success of Haiti’s upcoming rounds of immunization in increasing vaccination coverage rates will play an important role in Haiti’s documentation of the elimination of measles, rubella, and Congenital Rubella Syndrome necessary for regional verification,” wrote Dr. Kevin DeCock, the Director of the Center for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Anne Schuchat, U.S. Public Health Service Assistant Surgeon General.

Direct Relief supports more than 115 health facilities in Haiti and has been providing essential medicines and supplies to hospitals in the country since 1964. Over the last 48 years, Direct Relief has worked with local hospitals and clinics, delivering 1,500 tons of  essential medications  and supplies worth $82 million, and is the largest supplier of donated medicines to Haiti since the 2010 earthquake.

The post 3 Million Haitian Children Vaccinated in National Campaign appeared first on Direct Relief.

At the beginning of hurricane season in June, Direct Relief sent 15 hurricane preparedness modules to 10 partners in seven countries, including modules to four hospitals in Haiti. The ready-to-deploy modules contain enough medicines and supplies to treat 5,000 patients for one month in case of an emergency like Isaac. The use of the pre-positioned module is an example of preparedness efforts at work as Direct Relief recognizes National Preparedness Month.

With the supplies on hand, St. Damien’s staff was able to care for patients who were injured and sick facing extremely dire conditions. They distributed items from the modules, such as protein bars and infant nutritionals to those who were malnourished and dehydrated; and soap and oral rehydration solution in order to help prevent the spread of cholera .

According to a staff member at St. Damien’s, “the Hurricane Module provided by Direct Relief enabled us to immediately care for the sick and injured without having to wait to find and procure medical supplies. Having these modules on hand makes our job of providing direct patient care much easier.”

Medical care becomes increasingly important in the aftermath of an emergency as people face injuries from falling objects and others require care for everything from water-borne illnesses to dehydration.

With strong winds and heavy rains that caused extensive flooding, mudslides and at least two dozen deaths and many more injuries, this storm was especially devastating for the roughly 400,000 Haitians who are still living under battered and torn tents since the January 2010 earthquake.

Nearly 10,000 people were evacuated and put into government buildings during the storm. Many others had to bear the brunt of the winds and rain in extremely harsh living conditions when homes flooded and families were forced to higher ground.

Many patients turn to hospitals like St. Damien’s during emergencies, which is why it is important they are prepared.

St. Damien’s was founded in 2006 and is a 45,000 square foot, 120-bed facility with an emergency room, surgery and cancer wards, infectious and non-infectious disease wards, a dental clinic, outpatient clinic, and public health center. The staff at St. Damien’s is committed to outreach and providing care for those who are most poor and vulnerable.

St. Damien’s recently built a new hospital in Cite-Soleil called St. Mary’s that provides care for the residents of Cite-Soleil who are most prone to calamity when a hurricane or tropical storm hits. This impoverished and densely populated commune has an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 residents and is generally regarded as one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the Western Hemisphere.

Cite-Soleil has virtually no sewers and has a poorly-maintained open canal system that serves as its sewage system, which can be a source of water-borne disease following flooding after storm events such as Isaac.

The post Hurricane Modules at Work During National Preparedness Month appeared first on Direct Relief.

Yesterday afternoon my colleagues and I took the thirty minute flight from Port au Prince to Port de Paix in the far Northwest of the country. We came to the north to visit two more hospitals to upgrade the conditions of their maternity wards and encourage more women to come to the hospital for pre-natal visits and delivery. As we drove down the long, bumpy and muddy road from the airport to the hospital I was struck by the fact that this town seemed to be the poorest I’d seen in Haiti. There were almost no other cars on the road (as compared to the constant traffic in Port au Prince) and the houses and roads looked to be in even worse shape than those in the capital. However, when we arrived  at Beraca Hospital were greeted with a hot lunch of chicken, fish, plantains, rice and beans and a team of doctors and nurses who were eager to hear what we had come to offer.

Once again, I was struck by the eagerness and commitment of this medical staff to their jobs despite the fact that many of them had not been paid in months, their pharmacy had almost run out of stocks, and their sterilizer had broken so they had resorted to sterilizing their instruments in a pot of boiling water. This particular hospital had been funded by missionaries since it opened but funding has stopped and they haven’t received any outside support in over 10 years. Since they are not a government hospital, they do not receive any funding from the Ministry and thus have to rely on patient fees to support the hospital. That is almost unheard of in Haiti because it is simply not a model that can work here. Many patients cannot afford to pay for basic care. For example, ever since this hospital raised their fees for deliveries to 1,000GDS (roughly $25 USD), they only do 30 deliveries a month compared to the 100 they did before. So instead, the women have to deliver at home with the assistance of a matron who is often untrained and ill equipped to handle anything outside of a normal, perfectly smooth delivery.

This morning we left Port de Paix to head for La Tortue on a small boat with an outboard motor (that broke two times during the journey) and a purple velvet curtain attached to a PVC pipe that they used as a sail and boom. (The resourcefulness of Haitian people never ceases to amaze me). When we reached the island of La Tortue I thought I might be at the end of the earth. This is an island of 40,000 people but only has 10 cars and a couple tiny boats to get supplies across. The steepness and bumpiness of the unpaved roads is astounding. A couple of times I thought for sure the Land Cruiser transporting us was going to tip over backwards due to the incline. And now, it’s 7pm and I’m sitting on the balcony of the only guesthouse in town overlooking the whole island that stretches nearly 50km long and 7km wide and there are no lights on as far as you can see in any direction.  Indeed, the hospital we visited today only has power for 6 hours per day using a generator, does not have running water, and has to send patients to the hospital in Port de Paix (in that same velvet sail boat that takes nearly an hour—not to mention the trek to get to the water) if there is an emergency.

Today the doctor told us about a woman who came to deliver her baby at the hospital but he could not deliver the placenta no matter what he tried. So he sent her down the incredibly steep and bumpy road in the Land Cruiser and across the ocean in the velvet boat in order to be seen at the public hospital in Port de Paix. However, since this woman did not have the $30 for the procedure, they would not see her. So she waited outside the hospital for 4 days, meanwhile becoming infected, until finally her family was able to gather the money to get the hospital to perform the procedure.

This is an island where the hospital used to be the premier facility in the Caribbean and people traveled from neighboring countries all over the Caribbean to come for treatment. Today, I met the doctor at that same hospital on this same island and his first request was for a better boat so he could get patients away from his hospital and across the ocean to a different one.

This is the island where Napoleon’s sister once lived. Today, Napoleon’s sister’s house has been reduced to the foundation because the stones from her house have been used to build dozens of other houses around the island by people who don’t have any other resources to use.

The post Staff Story: Exploring Maternal Health in Northwest Haiti appeared first on Direct Relief.

We arrived at the small medical clinic in Petit Trou de Nippes about five hours after we left Port-au-Prince that morning. The distance is only 75 miles but the unpaved roads, traffic, and small lakes and rivers we had to drive through to get there made the drive long. Halfway through the trip my Haitian colleague Catherine asked me if I felt like I was in a blender with all the jostling of the Land Cruiser we were driving in. We just pretended we were getting expensive lower-back massages the whole way.

Like the other clinics I’ve visited on this trip, this is the only one serving the 25,000 people who live in the area. Unfortunately, this small government clinic does not have a doctor, because he left for a training course in Port-au-Prince and they fear he’s not coming back due to the poor pay he’s receiving. A young but committed first-year resident who just graduated from medical school last year is now running the clinic. I asked her if she felt ready to be running a medical clinic just one year out of school. Before she answered yes, she hesitated and looked around at the two nurses, social worker, administrator, pharmacist, and lab technician who were sitting on the bench across from her waiting to hear what she’d say. It seemed like she wanted to reassure them that she could do it.

Like the doctor on the island of La Tortue who asked for a better boat to get his patients across the ocean to the larger hospital, the doctor at this clinic also asked for better transport. However, she needed it to get women into her clinic to deliver their babies. The only “ambulance” the clinic has is two broken-down motorcycles, but they wouldn’t want to transport pregnant women on motorcycles even if they were working. They went on to say that pregnant women usually come in on horseback, are carried in a chair, or lying on a door while their neighbors carry them like pallbearers.

Lack is a common theme. For example, nearly 100 doctors and more than a thousand nurses get their degrees every year in Haiti, but low salaries often drive them away from the country. While plenty of doctors and nurses are trained every year, many rural areas are left without the staff to care for their people.

A relatively small amount of money can solve the clinics’ problems, ones they’ve been dealing with for years. The doctor on the island of Ile-a-Vache asked if we could fix the leaky roof in his exam room so when it rained he and his patients wouldn’t get wet anymore. The doctor on the island of La Tortue needed $1,000 to dig a well so he could put running water in his hospital. The doctor in Petite Trou de Nippes said her dream would be to have an actual ambulance, but she’d be happy if they could have gurneys or stretchers so women wouldn’t have to be carried in on doors. The medical director of Beraca Hospital wants a sterilizer so wouldn’t have to disinfect instruments in a pot of boiling water on the stovetop. The nurse on Ile-a-Vache needs a raise from $300 a month to $350 a month because her parents spent all their money to send her to school and now she’s responsible for taking care of her three siblings. And the administrator in Nippes, who was extremely proud to show me the professional patient records and filing system he keeps, said he needed a new desk because the one he’s using is just a piece of plywood sitting on two oil drums. This man was working for almost no pay (and often goes months without even getting a paycheck) yet took pride in his work. He needs a real desk.

The Haitian doctor I was traveling with, who had worked in the U.S. for the last 30 years, promised to personally pay the $1,000 for the well, because of the thought of working in a hospital without running water was unbearable.

I take comfort in the fact that I work for an organization that can respond many of these requests and has a plan to help improve the health of mothers and babies in Haiti. We’re providing pre- and post-natal incentive kits for women who come to the health facility for treatment and delivery, upgrading medical equipment needed for safe deliveries, providing 5,000 rapid HIV tests to test mothers who enroll in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) program, and providing ongoing education for traditional birth attendants. We’re targeting eight health centers strategically located in eight of the ten departments (or states) in Haiti, reaching 563,889 people, including almost 16,000 pregnant women over the course of the next year.

Sometimes it feels like we’re scratching the surface. But it still gives me hope.

The post Staff Story: A Door for an Ambulance appeared first on Direct Relief.

The day she sent me that message I was visiting a hospital Direct Relief is supporting in Marchand Dessalines, a town named after one of Haiti’s first leaders after its independence from France, about two-and-a half-hours north of Port-au-Prince in the Artibonite mountains. I learned from Dr. Fequirere, the young Haitian obstetrician/gynecologist who works at the hospital, that if a child is born in Haiti at the start of the third trimester it would have practically no chance of survival.

Haiti has the highest maternal and infant mortality rate in Latin America and the Caribbean. Pregnancy and its complications have become the leading cause of death and disabilities among women of childbearing age. Out of every 100,000 births, 630 women die giving birth. Roughly 77 percent of Haitian mothers give birth at home, and nearly 100 babies out of 1,000 die during their first year of life. The thought of my wife giving birth in what is now a typical home in Haiti–a battered tent or tarp without running water or sanitation–makes me queasy.

Since the earthquake, Direct Relief has focused on addressing immediate medical needs. We’ve supplied wound dressings, sutures, and wheelchairs after the earthquake; IV solutions, oral rehydration, and antibiotics after the cholera outbreak; and bleach, soap, shampoo, and toothpaste to address the poor hygienic conditions in the camps.

Now, 15 months after the earthquake and seven months since the outbreak of cholera, Direct Relief is taking a step back to focus on the ongoing medical issues facing the country. The one that takes my breath away is the number of women and babies who die unnecessarily every year in childbirth.

The eight hospitals Direct Relief is supporting throughout the country (all with trained doctors, nurses, and midwives), will ideally become centers of excellence in Haiti with new equipment and supplies to save more lives and encourage more women to come in for prenatal care. Over 50 percent of women in Haiti don’t eversee a doctor before they give birth—partially because of the state of the medical facilities.

Our plan takes a four-pronged approach:

1. Provide pre- and post-natal “incentive kits” to give to mothers who come in for pre-natal care and delivery. We’ll also pay for their transport to the facility and pay the traditional birth attendant to bring them in.
2. Upgrade the equipment and supplies at eight facilities to help them better care for women having complicated deliveries.
3. Provide rapid HIV tests to pregnant women who come in for prenatal care. They’ll receive antiretroviral treatment if they test positive.
4. Train traditional birth attendants to better recognize complications and encourage women to visit the clinic.

Dr. Fequirere at the hospital in Marchand Dessalines told me that they deliver about 80 babies each month, 10 of whom will die. While the hospital is staffed with five well-trained doctors, 18 nurses, and an anesthesiologist, it lacks the material resources to save these babies. There is no blood bank in the hospital. Often they don’t have the medications needed to treat the women, and they don’t have any incubators, let alone a neonatal intensive care unit to deal with premature deliveries. The doctor said the hospital must refer pre-term labor cases to a hospital over an hour away. The road between the hospitals is impossibly bumpy and winding, and the woman is transported in the back of a truck. Imagine any woman in your life–your wife, mother, daughter, or sister–having to endure that journey.

Bringing life into the world should not be a death sentence. We have the technology and knowledge to treat babies who are born three months (or more) early.

Sometimes it takes a personal experience, or the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to relate to these issues that affect so many people on our planet. Now that I my wife and I have a baby on the way and know what care pregnant women receive in the United States, I’m shocked by what most women in Haiti go through in bringing a new life into the world. Direct Relief is going to help change that for nearly one million women in Haiti. I’m glad I can be a part of it.

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