translated from Spanish: Haiti’s hospitals become overcrowded as earthquake casualties rise

Hospitals in southwestern Haiti are on edge on Monday, while authorities raised the death toll to 1,419 and the number of injured from last Saturday’s strong magnitude 7.2 earthquake to 6,900. The vast majority of fatalities have been recorded in the department of The South (1,133), whose capital is Les Cayes; while the rest correspond to the departments of Grand Anse (162), Nippes (122) and Northwest (2). The powerful quake has also destroyed about 37,300 homes and caused structural damage to another 46,000 and 25 medical centers, and has affected about 60,000 families, according to authorities. SATURATED HOSPITALSThe hospitals of the city of Les Cayes were saturated today by the avalanche of wounded caused by the powerful earthquake, to the point that in the General Hospital of this city, the toilets place numbered stickers on their foreheads to identify them. The injured with fractures that are not serious had to wait to be treated outside the hospital, waiting for the rains of Tropical Depression Grace, whose effects are already being felt in Port-au-Prince, in the east of the country, to reach the area in the coming hours. Dr. Pierre James, traumatologist of the General Hospital of Les Cayes, said in statements to Efe that the most urgent needs they have in the medical center are medical materials “to be able to operate on the people” who need it. At least seven medical facilities have reported structural damage and the three main hospitals in the area are overwhelmed by the large and growing influx of injured people, and demand is expected to increase in the coming days and weeks, the UN said in a statement. The UN stressed that there is an urgent need for emergency medical teams, specifically trauma care and orthopedic supplies, as well as the deployment of local health personnel. At the city’s uninjured airport on Monday, there were many seriously injured waiting to be transferred by helicopter to the capital or other cities. The Ministry of Health reported today that it transported 130 wounded from the area of the accident, 100 of them by land and 30 by air. AID AND PROMISE OF SPEED After presiding over an extraordinary meeting of his cabinet, Prime Minister Ariel Henry said at a press conference that the aid and donations received are being channeled to the most affected populations, through Civil Protection and under the supervision of the National Emergency Operation Center (COUN). Henry said that at that meeting they assessed what happened, but they also took stock of the country’s needs.” We had decided not to continue doing what was done in 2010 when donations were made to the country and funds were spent without seeing their impact,” Henry said, alluding to the devastating earthquake of 2010.Earlier, Henry promised to speed up rescue operations and care for victims starting monday. CRITICISM OF AID MANAGEMENTPese to the promises of Henry, who took office on July 20, thirteen days after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (Rnddh) on Monday criticized the Haitian authorities for their slowness in organizing aid to victims. Two days after the accident and despite the fact that a state of emergency has been declared, “the state has difficulty organizing aid to the victims,” the NGO said in a report. For the Rnddh, “this scenario is painfully reminiscent” of the earthquakes of January 12, 2010 and October 6, 2018, which affected respectively some municipalities of the West, southeast and Nippes, on the one hand, and some municipalities of the Northwest and Artibonite, on the other. Those affected “are completely left to their fate” and “some have already begun to take personal steps to look for tents to shelter from bad weather and meet their daily needs,” the organization added. The earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale was recorded at 08.29 local time (12.29 GMT) last Saturday, about 12 kilometers from the town of Saint-Louis du Sud, with hypocenter at 10 kilometers depth.

Original source in Spanish