Sorry I didn't blog last night but I was just so exhausted. Today was also a very busy day.
Yesteray, some highlights. Myself and Sarah continued our work coordinating medical logistics at the airport. We received news from the FOTCOH medical team had delivered 30 week twins the previous day and they weren't doing well. With the Canadian Military I was able to arrange transport of the babies, in their home made incubators to Port au Prince via helicopter. They were accompanied by medical staff from the FOTCOH clinic. They said everything went smoothly in PAP. The babies were quickly assessed and referred out to a treatment hospital, and the American Helicopter returned them to Jacmel.
We started working more closely with the World Food Program yesterday, as we are responsible for the materials coming off the many US helicopters landing. As of yesterday afternoon, they finally provided us with a worker at the airport to aid in logistics (though she did ask me to cover for her today while she took her lunch break).
Today was very busy with humanitarian small NGO missions. We did have an unfortunate crash of one of the Agape planes. The pilots are great, and had been on the airstrip several times before. They felt it was likely a landing gear malfunction. I knew something was wrong as soon as they touched down. The right wing touched down on the runway and then the plane did a 180 turn, landing in the grass on the side. The pilots walked out a few minutes later. We were so happy that no one was hurt!! The Canadian military, myself and a medic went up to the plane to make sure everyone was okay. We were still able to use the gear and supplies on the plane as well.
I was very happy, that eleven days after the earthquake that the large partners, UN, WFP, USAID were able to sit down for an organization meeting. They divided up into clusters (smaller subgroups) for management of the disaster. I was able to attend the Water cluster at 4:00, providing information on water trucks that were available. And then at 5:00 the Health Cluster. We subdivided into three cells - Ambulatory care (medical clinis, outpatient services), Inpatient care (hospitals, surgical capacity), supply and distribution (that's me) The meeting was a little chaotic but at least we finally had a better idea of what was happening in the city. We have a logistics meeting tomorrow at 1000h at the UN to discuss further planning.
Prior to this meeting I spent time with the Dominican Director of the Red Cross. He arrived in Jacmel unaccompanied and he wanted to assess the situation at the port where they were shipping supplies. I liased him with the Canadian DART representative, and secured them transportation to the port. They were actually unloading a shipment of supplies from the Dominican and we met the Southeastern director of the Red Cross.
But, the biggest highlight of my day was speaking with Christianne Amanpour of CNN. I don't always follow the news closely but I know her. After speaking with the Base Commander, he referred her to me for the Humanitarium side of things. We spoke for a few minutes and then she went to one of our distribution locations and off to the refugee camp.
It's late now and I've got a busy day ahead.
Goodnight.
Tiffany Keenan, MD CCFP
Haiti Village Health
"Sustainable Health Care in Haiti"
7 Marley Beach Drive
Warwick WK08
Bermuda. 441-599-7709
Canada. 506-474-2429
skype. tiffany.keenan.1971
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment