We have all heard the fears of violence and looting in Port au Prince, the thought by aid officials that people will be killed trying to get food and water if they drop it. I also want to remind everyone who can to rec theShelterBox Diary by TexMex which has just fallen off the rec list and donate if you can
We know that one group of Doctors from Belgium abandoned their patients at dusk bc there "might" be violence, leaving one doctor-a journalist covering the field hospital, one Haitian nurse and a camera crew who had the guts and ethics to stay to care for the 28 critical patients. Gupta's twitter where he said "i turned my crew into a crack medical team" went around the world but at daybreak all patients were alive. Especially extraordinary since the Belgians took the equipment as well.
Here is Sanjay Gupta's experience on the dignity and calm the Haitians have handled this catastrophe with:
In his blog posting It is just survival there are some excerpts i want to share.
I didn’t see the stoning myself, but several of my colleagues described a man who had been trying to steal money and was met with swift and deadly citizen justice. A lot was made of this particular tragedy, and if you caught only that headline, you might be left believing the incident was in some way emblematic of what was happening all over the place.
Isn't this is what we have said about MSM for so long? that they only show the terrible headline, the one to garner shock and fear?
I expected to see those stunned stares turn to desperation, and that desperation turn to brutality. It didn’t. In fact, I remember driving by a water station that had finally opened on January 18th, five days after the earthquake struck. It stayed in my mind for two reasons. First of all, five days is a long time to go with little to no water, especially in Haiti heat. Second of all, there was no pushing, shoving or aggressive behavior. There were no armed guards and there was a tight line, with people waiting patiently. Some were even singing songs, while blistering away in the heat. I almost cried. A piece of my faith in humanity, which had been trashed by too many terrible images, was slowly restored.
A couple of days later, I was seeing patients at one of the hospitals in downtown. It was actually more of a tent city situated outside the hospital, where care was sparse and misery was thick. Helping care for wounds, evaluate injuries and even perform surgery – every single patient said thank you, in Creole, French and English. Thank you. When recounting this to a neurosurgery colleague of mine, he reminded me that we could often go months working at a county hospital in the states without ever hearing those two words.
he also addresses the fact that people trying to get food when starving are not looting, not in the sense we think of the word. As he said, he would be right there doing the same to feed his family.
There is a desperate need for tents right now in Haiti, if you want to help with this need, please see TexMex's ShelterBox diary on how you can.
ShelterBox diary