(26 Aug 2021) Urgent aid from the United States is on the way to the twin tragedies impacting the people of Haiti. Amid a pandemic, Haitian families desperate for help are walking on broken limbs to reach medical attention in the wake of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
Nearly two weeks after the earthquake on Haiti's southwestern peninsula killed at least 2,207 people, injured more than 12,268 and destroyed nearly 53,000 houses, the U.S. Coast Guard is stepping up to reach those isolated and injured in the southern part of the country.
"My prayer for everybody is that god's peace is with them; that they have his hope," U.S. Coast Guard commander Eric Hammen says. He's also a chaplain — providing prayer and positivity to crews shuttling supplies and manpower back and forth from Miami.
At the airport in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, Dr. Stacy House sees about 40 patients a day who've fought off pain to walk on broken limbs to reach medical help. They've been transported on stretchers to a plane that have taken them to the capital city from the airport in Les Cayes, Haiti for triage.
Relief for the victims of a powerful earthquake and tropical storm began flowing more quickly into Haiti this week, but the Caribbean nation's entrenched poverty, insecurity and lack of basic infrastructure were still presenting huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it.
Coast Guard Co-pilot Caitlyn Gever flies to where people are injured and Medivacs them back to the airport. She's part of a crew of the Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater based on the island of Great Inagua in the Bahamas. She travels upward of two hours to rescue the injured from more remote areas of the country.
Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others were arriving in the southwestern peninsula where the weekend quake struck, killing more than 2,100 people. But the need is extreme, made worse by the rain from Tropical Storm Grace, and people were growing frustrated with the slow pace.
Adding to the problems, a major hospital in Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, was closed recently for a two-day shutdown to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country's few orthopedic surgeons.
Many of the patients will seek higher levels of care at Hospital Bernard Mevs in the capital city, run in partnership with Project Medishare.
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