There’s a desperate need for skilled medical personnel from a variety of emergency disciplines in Haiti as it deals with the massive earthquake that may have killed as many as 50,000 people.
The magnitude 7.0 temblor centered about 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, devastated large swaths of the city and caused major damage throughout the country. A Red Cross official estimated today that the death toll could reach the 45,000 to 50,000 range, according to the New York Times. Many victims are still buried in the rubble.
Boston, Mass.-based Partners in Health, which has more than 120 doctors and nearly 500 nurses and nurse assistants already on the ground in Haiti, cited on its website an urgent need for medical personnel and supplies there:
"As patients flood to our sites from Port-au-Prince, we’re finding ourselves in need of both medical personnel and supplies. In particular, we need surgeons (especially trauma/orthopedic surgeons), ER doctors and nurses, and full surgical teams (including anesthesiologists, scrub and post-op nurses, and nurse anesthetists).
If you are a health professional interested in volunteering, please send an email to [email protected] with information on your credentials, language capabilities (Haitian Creole or French desired), availability, and contact information."
Partners in Health has been working in the Caribbean country for more than two decades, setting up health clinics. Its clinical director for the country,
Louise Ivers, sent an email from Port-au-Prince the night after the temblor hit:
"Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS … Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us," Ivers wrote.
PIH executive director Ophelia Dahl, writing on the group’s website, said the earthquake destroyed much of Haiti’s already-distressed infrastructure in its most densely populous area.
"A massive and immediate international response is needed to provide food, water, shelter and medical supplies for tens of thousands of people," Dahl wrote.
“With our hospitals and our highly trained medical staff in place in Haiti, Partners In Health is already mobilizing resources and preparing plans to bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hardest hit.
Both our teams in Boston and Haiti are already mobilizing to deliver resources as quickly as possible to the places where they are needed most.”
We here at MassDevice urge our readers to join us in contributing to the relief efforts underway in Haiti. To make a donation to our friends at Partners in Health, please click here.
