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Doctor: Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince
“There are no security issues,” says Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, reporting from the General Hospital in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti, where 1,000 people are in need of operations. Lyon said the reports of violence in the city have been overblown by the media and have affected the delivery of aid and medical services.
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JUAN GONZALEZ: Amy Goodman is in Haiti, and we'll be joining her in a few minutes. But first, we turn to a voice from one hospital in Port-au-Prince that was badly destroyed by last week's earthquake. The General Hospital is three blocks from the crumbling National Palace.
Former President Bill Clinton visited the hospital Monday, as hundreds of people with broken limbs and multiple fractures were waiting for medical supplies to arrive.
Democracy Now! reached Dr. Evan Lyon at the General Hospital Monday evening. He is a doctor with Partners in Health.
DR. EVAN LYON: We've been working around the clock since our team from Partners in Health came to meet up with our Haitian colleagues, who are still here and still leading and still helping us recover to try to get this hospital back up and running. The infrastructure is really, you know, completely destroyed. There is a nursing school on this campus that collapsed completely, killing really, as far as we know now, the entire class of second-year nursing students. The medical school right behind me is-will not ever be usable again.
But the main problem is that this General Hospital, the main general public hospital for the city of Port-au-Prince, is still barely operational. We have a thousand patients scattered throughout the campus, mostly sleeping under the stars or sleeping in tents, a thousand patients who have been triaged, assessed. They're getting primary care. They're getting good medical care from Haitian staff and from volunteer international relief staff. But we are just scratching the surface of the operative needs of the orthopedic and other operative needs. Again, 1,000 people in need of operations, and we're just barely starting to scratch the surface.
Two days ago, we began operating. We had four operating rooms up as quick as possible and have been using them ever since. We don't have full proper anesthesia. We're missing many of the materials we need. But that has been working. As of last night, we have some electricity on the campus, and we'll be able to start operating twenty-four hours a day through this night and on through tomorrow.
I think, you know, the singing and the [inaudible], I know, is clear to many, certainly anyone who has followed Haiti and cared about this special country. One thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that misinformation and rumors and, I think at the bottom of the issue, racism has slowed the recovery efforts of this hospital. Security issues over the last forty-eight hours have been our-quote "security issues" over the last forty-eight hours have been our leading concern. And there are no security issues. I've been with my Haitian colleagues. I'm staying at a friend's house in Port-au-Prince. We're working for the Ministry of Public Health for the direction of this hospital as volunteers. But I'm living and moving with friends. We've been circulating throughout the city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials. There's no UN guards. There's no US military presence. There's no Haitian police presence. And there's also no violence. There is no insecurity.
JUAN GONZALEZ: That was Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health talking about the situation at the General Hospital in Haiti.
35 Comments so far
Show AllThe Misinformation is very deliberate. It to give the impression that this a violence ridden society on the verge of collapsing into full scale war and only the "10,000 heavily armed Marines" will be able to keep order.
This in turn justifies the US Military occupation and the focus and flying in Military personel and their gear as opposed to humanitarian aid. The longer the aid takes to get the people, the more likely chaos results as people grow more desperate thus fueling the cycle of "We need more security".
As reported by the Trinadad and Tobago news, the main goal of the US Military in Haiti is to ensure Aristide does not return to power and to ensure "Lavalas" remains outlawed. The USA has lost political ground in Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuala and Bolivia. They only recently regained their influence inside the Honduras by their tacit support of a coup in that country. They will not tolerate a Socialist Government in Haiti.
While "Racism" is being used as one of the tools towards spreading this misinformation, it not the underlying motivation.
Scratch that comment. Just found what I thought was missing.
"The USA has lost political ground in Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuala and Bolivia."
Also Paraguay. Pres. Fernamdo Lugo is a defrocked Liberation Theologian, like Aristide.
FAKE ISSUE ---- SECURITY
But if security is a fake issue, then why for at least the next two months will this by a front page headline in all mainstream media, along with the number of rioters just shot dead?
Gotta keep the old MI Complex up, functioning and reaping profits, right?
This has been the long-running excuse for not air-dropping supplies too. utter BS. there are NGOs walking around handing out what little food and water they can find. no guards, no security thugs needed.
if you let them starve long enough they will riot. just like the rest of us would. Actually, if this had been in the US or canada, there would have been riots after a couple of days.
Don't diss yourselves so much - the vast majority of people behaved in an exemplary manner after Katrina, despite all those misleading reports about people being mugged and raped in the dome.
And there's a good reason to avoid air dropping stuff if you can avoid it - it might well land on people and kill them.
That's rich. The other excuse I heard is they might fight over the food if we drop it,(so it is better not to give them any?)
We can see a tick on a dog's ass from the sky but we might hurt someone if we drop aid packages. Didn't seem to stop us from dropping peanutbutter sandwiches the first time we hit Afghanistan- that looked exactly like cluster bombs.
Better to let them all starve.
You may be able to see a tick on a dog's ass from the sky - but can you hit it?
If it was present at a wedding party, no doubt.
Touché!
Jeevee
A more cogent reason not to drop supplies from the air is that this violates the need for respect of human dignity and genuine caring.
Surely, as most aggressive are us North Americans of European blood. For the most dominate, assertive and enslaving people on earth are those with the mind, character and personality inherited from the ungodly Christian Crusaders.
GottaGetOffTheGrid 12:26 pm Actually, they did. First they landed the helicopter, refused to give the waiting people the supplies, then took off and hovered and dropped the packages on their heads like they were throwing bones to dogs. THAT'S how our Government treats their 'captive populations' everywhere around the globe. Inasmuch as we are now a 'captive population', they will do the same things to white people here (Black people first of course - always the first target - America's 'canary in the mine') after the 2nd and 3rd waves of our designed collapse. What they have done everywhere else on the planet they will not cavil at performing domestically on "the muck" (that's us). What a nightmare country on a nightmare planet.
We could save a lot of money if we stopped operating on the assumption that people must be forced to be good neighbors.
PEACEFUL SLAVES ---- FORCEFUL SLAVE-DRIVERS
When plantation owners went down to the slave market, top dollar were they willing to pay for the slaves with the most pacifist, agreeable and gentle spirit. A fact well known by slave traders and in selecting their next boat load of victims, virtually all were smiling and friendly until put in chains and packed like sardines below deck.
And as evidence by most all in Haiti being most smiley and friendly, this aspect of our mind, character and personality passes from father to son.
So, the police in Haiti that have since the CIA coup dictatorship of 2004 been executing over 2,000
Aristide supporters a year, they are the aggressive sons of the aggressive slave-drivers of old.
And so, if we want freedom for the slaves in Haiti, organize we must and get down to Haiti in force, as the gentle slaves of Haiti have no desire to oppose anyone.
The delay in delivering aid to Port-au-Prince matches the delay that occurred in New Orleans after Katrina and, in both places, the official excuse for the delay was the same, security concerns. In New Orleans the net result of this was a marked decrease in the city's African-Americans population. Could this be the intent of the incredibly slow delivery of aid and health care to Haiti? Alternatively, the U.S. government might be thinking something like, "What the heck, there'll be plenty of cheap labor in Haiti for all the sweatshops we've got planned, so what's the use of trying to save the thousands who've been injured by the earthquake. After all they'll die anyways from lack of follow-up care." As for the alleged security problem, based on my own experience in Haiti many years ago, that's nonsense. It was during "Papa-Doc" Duvalier's reign. Very few visitors then because the oppression was so blatant, with Tonton Macouts (Duvalier's brutal enforcers) roaming the streets, that tourists were almost nonexistent. Yet walking the streets, alone, with large numbers of obviously starving teenagers (several with the pot-belly of protein deficiency malnutrition) all around me, not once, never, no sign of any aggressive behavior towards yours truly. Asking for hand-outs, yes, but no surprise, that, in such an incredibly impoverished land. And anyway why would these teenagers threaten one of the few visitors to their country when by doing so they might deliver a mortal blow to tourism, upon which some of them depended for their meagre earnings. Same applies today to the delivery of aid. Haitians aren't stupid, they're not going to bite the hand that feeds them. To think otherwise is racism, pure and simple.
The official version of who Jean-Bertrand Aristide is is a lie. The U.S. forced a legitimately elected head of state into exile by having the CIA kidnap him and fly him to Africa. He wants to come back. He would be an effective person to head the rebuilding of Port au Prince.
But, as has been said, he wouldn't permit corporations to unduly profit on the backs of his people. Some people call it socialism. Some just liberation-theology. But the people don't deserve ill-educated armed services grunts threatening them with death. Mother Nature is doing a fine job of that.
The need to make people believe that the Hatiians will descend into violence is racist to be sure but it goes even deeper.
Anarchists have always argued that humans will naturally form harmonious, productive truly socialist relationships if the opressive apparatus of capitalist economic relations, enforced by monopoly state or mercenary violence, is abolished. And the spontaneous explosion of mutual aid that arises during disasters seems to support Anarchist theory.
But, for obvious reasons, the state and capitalist economic elites are absolutely terrified of such a thing. Thus, they go to great lengths to convince people that without the state, people descend into violence. Look at how they have subverted the very word "anarchy" to mean "violent chaos"!
What happened to the Haitian government? It lived in its palace and died there. There is/was no government in Haiti--the US steps in every few years, struts around, helps the rich and destroys the poor--see especially the need for Haiti to import rice from the US, where once it was self-sufficient.
Want to help Haiti? Support indigenous leaders, get the US , World Bank, IMF out--they will only further pauperize the poor and make the rich, richer.
Our troops are not men of true courage. They know how to kill and terrorize the unarmed enemies of Iraq and Afghanistan. But they tremble in their boots in Haiti to go outside the "secure" perimeter with food, water, and medicine and without a weapon.
They are fearful, not brave.
The FOXification of the situation notwithstanding.
It is obvious from the previous comments that nothing the U.S. does will be right for these authors. No matter. We will help them anyway, like we always do.
It would be nice to find even one news article about the Haitian people and their own governments efforts. The US media only reports how american's feel. Or how other countries feel about us. It is no coincedence that our initials are 'US', although "ME" would do as well.
Their own government is Aristide and his party. Thanks to us, he was deposed, is in exile and probably still blocked from returning. Those that we installed to replace him are not interested in anyone but themselves.
But it is true that there is little coverage of assistance by other countries. They came without guns and soldiers to help. That is what we should be doing.
Joe
I can just hear the greedy bastards cussing up a storm about how if only they could have seen this coming maybe they could have sold all the victims some health care insurance so that then they could charge them for all the medical services provided. That's the good old USI's answer to the problem, isn't it?
Tell me why "I think at the bottom of the issue, racism has slowed the recovery efforts of this hospital"?
For outsider it is unclear also racism is an issue wherever.
Ignorance and racism rule.
Well, it seems that the only functional hispital in Haiti is the field hispital set by the Israelies.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/
world/2010/01/18/dnt.cohen.haiti.patients.dying.cnn
-- another report said a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned away, then later allowed in; meanwhile, Israel got carte blanche for its own field hospital, able to handle 500 casualties daily, so it begs the question - why praise Israel for (selectively) helping Haitians when it murders Palestinians daily, keeps the West Bank isolated and locked down, Gaza under siege, and denies critically ill residents exit permission for treatment unavailable from Strip facilities, leaving them to perish; ...
I turn the question on its head, why try to denigrate what some israelis are doing in Haiti because of what some others do in Israel? Unless you have information to share that the whole operation is just a PR stunt? Then maybe i can agree...
Im so tired of hearing "The jews" "The arabs" "The americans" reality is more complex than that oversimplification.
The Cubans had field hospitals set up the day after the earthquake. They also have 400 or so doctors on the Island but of course Western media don't like to see or admit it. Maybe the Israelis should have stand away and, do you think, help the those in Gaza. Israelis on a humanitarian missions what a group of hypocrites. They are only trying polished their dulled brand.
Yes, and thank God there is a functioning field hospital
If you had to choose between an Israeli hospital and no hospital to save a family member - wake up !!
In a disaster of this magnitude, you have to put politics aside
If my child's life is saved by a doctor, I don't question the ideology of the government that sent the hospital. My child is alive.
There are many Israeli Doctors who volunteer for Doctors Without Borders. We do not condemn them for volunteering and saving lives. We do not question the value of a great humanitarian agency.
To reduce this disaster to a political pissing match is immoral.
Why is Democracy now! not linked in the special coverage box on the main page?
Seriously with Amy Goodman on the ground, you choose to link The New York times and The Washington post over Democracy now! ?
US and UN out of Haiti Now, Yesterday, and Tomorrow! If we had a functioning and intelligent Antiwar Movement we would, and could, be making that demand Now, Yesterday, and Tomorrow. No Haiti Occupation by foreign troops! No people left defenseless when hurricanes and earthquakes hit!