This week we've been seeing some particularly disturbing new developments coming from Haiti, not because of the quake or any other natural phenomenon, but because of one that is all too man made. In the absence of government, up to this point it seemed that the country had been completely overtaken with foreign troops and relief organizations. We even complained the president had been too quiet and that maybe a word or two from someone in Haiti's own leadership would at least boost morale for the people, well we should have been careful what we wished for.
This week the old guard of Haiti reared its head (well sort of, although you never get to meet or talk to the administrator who is actually in charge of any particular thing) and somehow managed to start demanding taxes on donated relief supplies (which is illegal), confiscating goods meant for the Haitian people such as medicine, clothes, tents, anything else of value (which would be stealing if they didn't promise to 'distribute it for you')... and don't think your own luggage is exempt, they started taking that too (don't worry, you'll get it back they tell you... but when?, the minister who answers that question is also a ghost).
And that was the morning and the evening of the government's first day back.
On the second day, a reporter from CNN asked: Why are you taxing relief supplies and confiscating goods meant for the Haitian people here at the airport? International law of the UN says that during a state of emergency such as this there should be no taxes collected on such goods brought into a country as relief supplies. What to do they must have said, of course, they declared that 'we are no longer in a state of emergency' despite the fact that the death toll approaches three hundred thousand, the homeless population just reached two million, we still see dead bodies in the streets, there is rubble and filth everywhere, and the entire country is still hungry needing water.
The earth shook after the second day and no one could sleep well that night.
Now i wish I could stop here because nothing else happened, but I cant. Mother of bad ideas, the shadow government is on a roll. Grumblings about aid orgs coming into Haiti with their own equipment and causing the country to have free wifi internet when it should be a paid service begin this morning. On the third day they ask the more than one hundred thousand people who left the city of Port au Prince for fear that weak buildings could fall on them to return to their old neighborhoods. Now this means the rubble where their homes once stood since most houses are completely destroyed. They actually demanded these people back who lost everything and went outside the city after the quake where there was less rubble and more space to at least pitch a tent. Until this day that rubble is still there and many areas are on hills where people cant even pitch their tents anymore. Why you might ask? When there is no state of emergency, everyone must go home (because there's no emergency, right?).
The sun went down on the third day and it rained on the homeless all night.
((I hope to be able to stop here,
because nothing else will happen...))
Friday, February 26, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
We Have Tried To Remain Objective But...
Its the morning of the 11th day since the earthquake of 2010 struck Haiti, and still not enough medicine and / or medical supplies has reached its people. The world banded together to try and help Haiti. I can honestly say they are doing all they can and giving all they know how to give. All of the world really does want to help and it is much appreciated.
I heard a terrible story today that some people had to get surgery without anesthesia and others started trying to amputate their own limbs in order to avoid infection because no one came that could help them with their wounds.
Yet almost immediately soldiers came from around the world and were literally crawling all over the place. Today i asked one of them to go and help those people, the people with serious wounds and he said 'we really want to help them but we are not doctors and we don't have any of them on our team'.
I kept wondering why so many soldiers and not enough doctors, and then I realized that military is all the governments of the world have to offer. We spend trillions on high tech star wars weapons programs without even blinking, yet we argue about the cost of health care for people.
I look forward to the day when hopefully our children, but more likely than that our children's children look back on this time, talk about us and say, Oh look at that, what neo-neanderthals they were.
They squandered everything. Used all their resources to build weapons. Oh look at how they destroyed the whole planet back then and when disaster struck, they couldn't even heal their sick because all that they had planned for was war.
They had satellites in the air, yes that they could do, but too many were trained to be soldiers and there were not enough trained as healers. They had weapons of mass destruction but no systems of mass medical support.
Ah that explains it, oh i see, it is because... their brains were smaller than ours! Really there's no evidence that we came from them. Maybe we actually evolved from other primates. Lets study the DNA!
I heard a terrible story today that some people had to get surgery without anesthesia and others started trying to amputate their own limbs in order to avoid infection because no one came that could help them with their wounds.
Yet almost immediately soldiers came from around the world and were literally crawling all over the place. Today i asked one of them to go and help those people, the people with serious wounds and he said 'we really want to help them but we are not doctors and we don't have any of them on our team'.
I kept wondering why so many soldiers and not enough doctors, and then I realized that military is all the governments of the world have to offer. We spend trillions on high tech star wars weapons programs without even blinking, yet we argue about the cost of health care for people.
I look forward to the day when hopefully our children, but more likely than that our children's children look back on this time, talk about us and say, Oh look at that, what neo-neanderthals they were.
They squandered everything. Used all their resources to build weapons. Oh look at how they destroyed the whole planet back then and when disaster struck, they couldn't even heal their sick because all that they had planned for was war.
They had satellites in the air, yes that they could do, but too many were trained to be soldiers and there were not enough trained as healers. They had weapons of mass destruction but no systems of mass medical support.
Ah that explains it, oh i see, it is because... their brains were smaller than ours! Really there's no evidence that we came from them. Maybe we actually evolved from other primates. Lets study the DNA!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
We Have Tried To Remain Objective But...
Did you know that the UN ordered an emergency team of doctors who had just arrived ready to treat injured patients in a makeshift hospital tent to LEAVE them to possibly die?
When we saw the feed coming in from Haiti about this we could hardly believe what we were reading so I verified it with several media sources and its true. What we thought was the calvary turned tail and ran away leaving only CNN's reporter / Doctor Sanjay Gupta to try and care for dozens of injured people by himself.
EVERYONE needs to contact the United Nations and complain about this right NOW! I mean there should be so many complaints that the UN would need to hire staff just to read them all! We do not want a repeat hurricane Katrina situation where healthy people die of neglect!
It is one thing if the calvary cannot reach people in time for reasons beyond their control until people become ill and pass away, but they had already overcome whatever challenges they may have faced to get to the makeshift hospital full of injured people and THEN THEY LEFT! Its so upsetting and for what? What justifiable reason could there be. Of course its not safe to go into a disaster area.
We can understand that Haiti has its problems of all kinds right now. That is NO EXCUSE for the UN to have ordered emergency doctors to leave the sick who desperately needed help last night because of so called 'security concerns'. What could they have been thinking. CNN's Sanjay Gupta was apparently the only doctor to stay and disobey the UN orders.
He stayed up all night to care for dozens of patients all alone, being forced to enlist his team of reporters to help him with the work doctors should have done. There was complete peace and quiet as they worked through the night so we may never know what the United Nation's so called security concern might have been in the first place. Well thank God for Gupta who was not afraid and so he did not betray his hypocratic oath!
Any so-called doctors who would leave in this situation on orders from the UN or anyone else is a coward and does not belong there in my opinion. If you have no heart to disobey bad orders telling you not to help please stay home! Space is limited and YOU are sitting in a "real doctor without borders" seat on the plane.
-------------------------------------
STORY UPDATE 1:
The UN insists that they did not order the doctors to leave, however SOMEONE DID. And if not them, then who?
In any case they went back so thank God!
-------------------------------------
STORY UPDATE 2:
CONFIRMED: the United Nations were NOT the ones who ordered the doctors to leave. It was someone on the doctors OWN TEAM.
In my opinion that person should no longer be allowed to command the team of doctors and these doctors need to do what they know is right, no matter what.
In any case they all went back in the morning due to the many complaints received so thank you everyone for complaining.
Special thanks to CNN's Doctor Sanjay Gupta. Thanks to ONLY HIM and his team (of reporters and camera men, not doctors), everyone of the sick and injured Haitians made it through the night.
-------------------------------------
FOR LIVE UPDATES VISIT: USA for Haiti
When we saw the feed coming in from Haiti about this we could hardly believe what we were reading so I verified it with several media sources and its true. What we thought was the calvary turned tail and ran away leaving only CNN's reporter / Doctor Sanjay Gupta to try and care for dozens of injured people by himself.
EVERYONE needs to contact the United Nations and complain about this right NOW! I mean there should be so many complaints that the UN would need to hire staff just to read them all! We do not want a repeat hurricane Katrina situation where healthy people die of neglect!
It is one thing if the calvary cannot reach people in time for reasons beyond their control until people become ill and pass away, but they had already overcome whatever challenges they may have faced to get to the makeshift hospital full of injured people and THEN THEY LEFT! Its so upsetting and for what? What justifiable reason could there be. Of course its not safe to go into a disaster area.
We can understand that Haiti has its problems of all kinds right now. That is NO EXCUSE for the UN to have ordered emergency doctors to leave the sick who desperately needed help last night because of so called 'security concerns'. What could they have been thinking. CNN's Sanjay Gupta was apparently the only doctor to stay and disobey the UN orders.
He stayed up all night to care for dozens of patients all alone, being forced to enlist his team of reporters to help him with the work doctors should have done. There was complete peace and quiet as they worked through the night so we may never know what the United Nation's so called security concern might have been in the first place. Well thank God for Gupta who was not afraid and so he did not betray his hypocratic oath!
Any so-called doctors who would leave in this situation on orders from the UN or anyone else is a coward and does not belong there in my opinion. If you have no heart to disobey bad orders telling you not to help please stay home! Space is limited and YOU are sitting in a "real doctor without borders" seat on the plane.
-------------------------------------
STORY UPDATE 1:
The UN insists that they did not order the doctors to leave, however SOMEONE DID. And if not them, then who?
In any case they went back so thank God!
-------------------------------------
STORY UPDATE 2:
CONFIRMED: the United Nations were NOT the ones who ordered the doctors to leave. It was someone on the doctors OWN TEAM.
In my opinion that person should no longer be allowed to command the team of doctors and these doctors need to do what they know is right, no matter what.
In any case they all went back in the morning due to the many complaints received so thank you everyone for complaining.
Special thanks to CNN's Doctor Sanjay Gupta. Thanks to ONLY HIM and his team (of reporters and camera men, not doctors), everyone of the sick and injured Haitians made it through the night.
-------------------------------------
FOR LIVE UPDATES VISIT: USA for Haiti
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