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Today we learn that MSF flights are still being diverted – and it’s costing lives:
Patients in dire need of emergency care dying from delays in arrival of medical supplies
Port-au-Prince – A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) cargo plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies and two dialysis machines, was turned away three times from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, airport since Sunday night, despite repeated assurances of its ability to land there.This 12-ton cargo was part of the contents of an earlier plane carrying a total of 40 tons of supplies that was blocked from landing on Sunday morning. Since January 14, MSF has had five planes diverted from the original destination of Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic. These planes carried a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies.
It’s important to note that MSF has been trying to coordinate with the US government and – after the 40-ton shipment was diverted and MSF was told they would not be allowed to land such a large plane, they diverted to Santo Domingo and broke the shipment up into several smaller flights – arranging smaller planes and trying to prioritize these shipments. They were told that these would be allowed in – but once in the air, they were again diverted.
According to the BBC, there are reports that some flights have been delayed while dignataries (such as SoS Clinton and then former president Clinton amongst others) were landed. You can listen to the full report and interview with Greg Elder of MSF at this link (audio at middle of page)
Meanwhile, this is what the MSF staffers face on the ground:
“We have had five patients in Martissant health center die for lack of the medical supplies that this plane was carrying,” said Loris de Filippi, emergency coordinator for the MSF’s Choscal Hospital in Cite Soleil. “I have never seen anything like this.
“Any time I leave the operating theater, I see lots of people desperately asking to be taken for surgery. Today, there are 12 people who need lifesaving amputations at Choscal Hospital. We were forced to buy a saw in the market to continue amputations. We are running against time here.”
The Wall Street Journal reports:
It has been unclear at times who is in charge—the U.S. military, which controls the main airport, or the U.N., which ostensibly oversees the relief operation. …
The U.S. military is reluctant to move shipments out of the airport without a security escort, sometimes causing added delays…
U.S. officials have blamed security concerns for holding up relief. Yet a team of Cuban doctors were seen Monday treating hundreds of patients without a gun or soldier in sight.
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The question is “who is in charge of anything?” Not just Haiti, but it is a good example. This is the most awful tragedy and the devastation is like none I have ever seen. Will the people who are fleeing to the countryside get any help or will they be too far away?
Siun, as usual, your post is right on the mark. Do you know if there is a person in overall charge of this operation?
Ostensibly, the US miltary that is commanded by war criminals.
WTF!
We can’t possibly expect cheese-eating surrender monkeys to be able to do anything to help. Diverting them is zero cost /s
Oh goodie a WAR CRIMINAL post in the daylight. That’ll help.
Why aren’t we placing medicine and other precious small cargo on drones and remote landing them where needed?
Answer: because bombing innocent muslims is so much more profitable.
I do expect them to do everything they can to help. We have to stop looking like a bunch of droops and get our act together. I can remember when the USA always was first at every disaster and worked miracles. What has happened?
Do any of you really trust the US military to run an operation like this?
Don’t confuse malevolence with incompetence.
Drones are small, lightweight craft. They aren’t designed for carrying cargo. They’re so light that they can’t manage to fit the anti-collision equipment into them to fly alongside real planes in FAA regulated airspace.
They should have diverted the Clintons rather than any aid. Let these two self-serving, cynical politicians stage their photo-ops somewhere else. Put a banana tree in the photos and claim it was Haiti, whatever. But don’t divert desperately needed aid materials so that worthless politicians can pose for photos.
Right, or they should have had them fly over and filmed them looking out the window so you could bitch about that.
[modnote: argue and/or attack ideas but not the commenters, please.]
There will come a time, unless things get better much more quickly than they appear to be, when all that security will be necessary. While I think the U.S. military should be more sensitive to the current situation on the ground, I don’t blame them for their caution. The one thing that could stop a lot of the relief effort is casualties among U.S. civilians or military.
By “current situation”, I mean that there are only isolated reports of violence now, and most are being handled. The military is a big bureaucracy, and it doesn’t usually turn on a dime. That’s a problem if they remain in charge.
OTOH, getting military units into a country with so little working transportation is a big challenge, and I think they may have blinders on partly because they’re concentrating on that challenge.
“They tell me the size, and I figure out where to park it like a jigsaw puzzle,” said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Adrian Jezierski, who is among those helping direct in planes from the field.
Across from the warehouse, helicopters come in to load up on food and water that is sent to distribution sites. In one day, the choppers loaded seven tons of food and equipment to be delivered to those in need.
There have been challenges. Many countries have sent in a plane, and while that is “their priority, it’s not necessarily a priority” on the ground in Haiti, he said. . That has caused some backups, and planes have had to be diverted.
On Sunday, a French plane carrying a portable hospital was diverted because the landing space was full.
Lionel Isaac, the airport’s director, said that overcrowding has been a problem and that planes coming from other countries need to do a better job of letting people in Haiti know what they have and when they will arrive.
“They don’t do it,” he said. “They just fly in.”
“Everybody thinks their plane is a priority,” said Maj. Nathan Miller, who helps coordinate air operations.
[modnote: please provide a link to copyright material. Thank you.]
Amy G. has been reporting about this. I really wanted to believe that our government would not behave badly in this.
Siun, what do you think can be done? What can we do?
Send the FDL precision whining and critique crew down there to square shit away.
They carry bombs – which must weigh as much as a fair amount of medicines would. And screw FAA regulations during a time like this.
Yes. We managed the Berlin Airlift.
I’m not bitching but can’t understand what’s going on.
Thousands and thousands of pounds of supplies and they can’t get it on the ground? I’m not even saying it’s our military’s fault because I don’t know that. I’m just trying to figure out why some planes are landing and others are not, etc.
They’re just not dying fast enough for some people’s tastes.
And by “some people’s,” I mean the people that funded assassination attempts and backed coups.
And by “tastes,” I mean future profits.
And I do think that the logistics have been terrible to manage, the landing so problematic. I did hear that it was a huge relief when the US was put in charge of managing it, that it really did improve. I know unloading w/o proper equipment to move big stuff (and efficiently) has also been difficult, so I don’t say it is malevolent per se.
I know it has been hard to get food and water to people for the same reasons. I suppose it is tough to decide which needs more priority, medical or food/water in these conditions.
I think MSF is great and amazingly effective. Frankly, I’d prioritize them over most of the US side contributions.
Sorry, I should have made sure my “/s” was more prominent.
Not all drones carry munitions, and most carry missiles, not bombs, as I understand it. The FAA point was that these craft often can’t get off the ground with a few extra pounds. They can’t carry cargo. At best they can carry a few specially designed weapons that lock into the craft and were designed for that purpose. The article states that these relief planes would be capable of carrying 40 tons of relief supplies at a time. The issue is not the planes, or having a place for them to land, it’s the fixation the US has on military needs over relief needs in Haiti.
The BBC had a good article up yesterday that explains many of the logistical difficulties. Let’s see if I can find it. I couldn’t find that one, but this one is similar. The government is largely dysfunctional, and had been for some time (thanks to the U.S. and the IMF, among others.) The U.S. and the U.N. are in charge by default, and neither is likely to be especially suited for the role.
Because there is a very limited amount of space. Airplanes have to park somewhere and then get out. There is a physical limit to how many aircraft can be on the ground there at one time. There is NO question there will be problems. The have no tower so they are doing air traffic control from the air. You have a thread like this where Siun is trying to raise consciousness and then get this war criminal bullshit it’s just stupid.
Yeah, checked the wikipedia on it. The Predator drone, for example, carries at most 2 missiles; it can carry about 1200 pounds of weight, and flies at a ridiculously slow speed, 135 mph. It’s not designed to go anywhere *fast*, or carry anything heavy. It’s designed to fly very slow, for a very long time, until something they want dead appears, when it will have at most 2 shots to kill it.
It’s not even worth discussing. Even if you could do it, and you can’t, drop a load of supplies on some kids and listen to that uproar.
I know. I was just trying to illustrate *why* it’s not feasible. I think people have an idea that these drones are mythical supertools, because we use them so much. Which of course is not the case. We use them because they’re remote-controlled, because there’s no grieving family for a drone, and because they’re very cheap (by Pentagon standards).
No tower? ! How do they usually land planes?
The military is used to bringing everything it needs with it. (Most modern ones are, if they expect to have expeditionary forces, at least.) It takes a lot of effort to figure out what to send first, what next, etc., when you assume you have nothing on the ground already. In contrast to the rescue teams, whose needs are relatively simple, the military also has to worry about having enough stuff on the ground that they can continue operating aircraft and vehicles in and out of the disaster area, have command centers set up so they can keep track of things, and secure it all.
All that makes sense in just about any war situation or a situation that’s close to war. This is a different thing, and I suspect that it isn’t something they think about very much. Unfortunately, mistakes are going to happen. The trick is to have commanders, including the one at the top of the org chart, able to monitor the situation and make things happen differently.
What people have the idea of is if they mix bullshit like this in the conversation they can get everybody all whipped up about how awful we are and how great everyone else is. If only the French were in charge, they do shit right. Indochine, Algeria, you know the drill.
The tower came down in the quake.
1200 pounds in semi remote locations would be a lot of morphine and antibiotics etc.
I really have not been following the story closely… not watching television these days. So thanks for the feedback.
Also been wondering if our aid is seriously diminished as it has been before because all of our helicopters are in the ME.
Then don’t discuss it.
The US military demanded they be given control of the airport. They have done nothing but sit on the increasing tons of water and food fearful of moving out into the country, even in their Kevlar body armor and automatic weapons with KJV Bible verses on the gun sights.. And the people die.
They have turned away too many MSF supply missions for it to be “logistical or even ineptitude.” And the people die.
Once they get their Marine division there they will march into Port au Prince expecting to be greeted by the world as the great saviors.
Folks it’s political, whether at the level of turf war or higher who can tell. My guess it is a mixture of turf war and ineptitude at the level of the Administration and also military leadership.
On that point, here’s a picture of the airport. It looks like a regional airport in America, not the only one for a nation of nine million people. (Yes, they have a municipal airport, too, but they’re largely useless for anyone not flying a small military transport.)
You can fit maybe six airliners on that tarmac, and based on satellite photos, at least, there ain’t a whole lot else there.
From what I’ve seen the US response is legitimately being governed by a pervasive fear of disorder and rioting. We’re more worried about Haiti destabilizing, and/or a large wave of refugees, than we are about actually getting help to the population.
Military transport aircraft from Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, France, Peru and the US jostled for space on the tarmac as helicopters from several air forces buzzed overhead.
Doctors, sniffer dogs, troops and rescue workers had to contend with airport congestion, limited jet fuel for return flights and an airport without an air traffic control tower or working radar.
How would you get it down to the ground, crash the drone? If these remote locations have airports, they could land conventional planes there.
I don’t know if it’s be governed by it but it damn sure better be part of the equation. Get a couple of GI’s killed and see what happens.
It pisses me off that this guys name is Buck, WTF? The USAs credibility in the international community is going down in flames. With me too!
You know I disagree with so much of what you post but I have to tell you. I broke my back in a wreck in 75 and spent 2 months in Grady and they saved my ass. For that I am eternally grateful.
THanks. That was a really dumb question for me to ask. Of course, the tower would come down. I’m not sure the problem is solvable in the short run.
Part, yes. But I think things like this show where our emphasis is:
Do drones require as much space for a landing strip… wouldn’t some smaller roadways work? Thanks.
Not dumb at all, everyone wants the best possible things to happen, they just express if differently.
It does not matter what falls out of the sky, if it hits you. it will kill you.
Drones don’t help. Drones “drop” things.
What they have to do for an airdrop is first send out enough troops to secure an area (hopefully escorted by a few local gendarmes, but whatever) and then drop the stuff. They’ve been doing that (go there and click on “Airdrops”), at least when and where they can. Kinda hard to do that in the middle of a city, which is where a lot of the supplies need to go right now.
We have 19 helicopters on an aircraft carrier off Haiti now, according to the BBC, the USS Carl Vinson. They’d be a lot better for moving stuff around than a drone.
Come on, if that were our “emphasis” we’d just throw up a naval blockade and let them fend for themselves.
I am glad your treatment brought recovery.
Yep. Those scuzzy underpaid chronically overwhelmed docs, nurses, etc. usually do a pretty good job. One thing I know they want to make people well.
For obvious reasons I really cry for those MSF folks almost as much as the maimed Haitians.
I also have no doubt that everyone of those military ranks feel the same. It is their timid politically influenced leadership that deserve the scrutiny. Not just blind trust that since they are US they must be doing the best it can be done..
I think it’s a bit of both. We help because we want to, but we’re also scared witless of a huge disaster this close to our own borders. So we prioritize security. Security isn’t a bad thing, but our knee-jerk reaction is to expect a massive wave of lawlessness and that hasn’t materialized.
So Rahm not going to let a crisis go to waste and have Port-A-Prince be the next Gitmo?
Well, I’ve always been under the impression drones land too. Perhaps they could land before dropping things. Certainly seems like it would be a dual purpose / easily retrofitted design. But I am just asking questions in hope of learning a little.
Well, yes, they do land. They probably need a runway though. As Cujo pointed out, we are doing airdrops, and they’d get to where they need to be faster, carry more stuff, etc. The drones have hardpoints to put missiles on, but I doubt if you could just lash a big sack full of medicine on the side of what is essentially a suped-up model airplane.
Drones might be useful for surveillance/data gathering in a situation like this; I know, in fact, that they have been used to gather data in forest fires and other natural disasters. That’s their job, really, information gathering, and I bet they could be incredibly useful in Haiti, to figure out where roads are destroyed, see where people have gathered for help, etc.
This is what you get when militarization is the US government’s first answer to every problem. This should be a UN coordinated effort, with first preference given to medical teams and supplies, food and water. Landing 10,000 troops, weapons, contractors, food, transport, and gear should not be the first priority. Order is essential to get anything moving, but there’s a big difference between the artful chaos of early relief efforts and the military precision of a prolonged occupation. Which are we interested in?
Practically, it’s also important when dozens of countries offer essential aid, from search and rescue teams to first responders and wrecking crews to move disabling debris, to sequence in as many national contributions as possible. Ordinarily, that can be done while sticking to the overall priority of medicine, water, food. But not if generals and politicians get in the way.
Oooh 1961, and for some anticommunist PR!
Now tell me how this applies to saving lives among Disney’s low-paid reserve labor pool.
Seems like I recall Bushco turning away offers of early/at the ready aid from others during Katrina?
I have been in and out of that airport a number of times.
And yes it is marginal to my uneducated eye and I don’t think the runway length is that great either. The port is also marginal. and I know still dysfunctional But there are beaches that could handle amphibious craft. The Marines could have had them pulled by a paddling fast duck (the feathered kind) and have them there now. I don’t know numbers but I sense the runway length is not all that great even.
But for cripes sake it’s been over a week!
Another little nugget. Royal Caribbean Cruises is still docking and landing their luxury cruise clients as though nothing had happened I can find the Guardian link for anyone interested.
I have a friend, Regine Zamor, who’s on the ground in Haiti — she’s of Haitian origin, went down by herself to help, and is apparently getting some good things done. Her blog is here:
http://bagaydwol.wordpress.com/
And her twitter address, if that’s the right term, is regineparicia.
While the celebrity planes hurt, and gall one’s sense of priorities, it is really the number of military planes/operations that are holding things up (along with the wrecked infrastructure).
Why so much military? Because the Haitians are an independent people, because they hate their government, which was forced upon them, and because the U.S. government fears that with the manifest failure of the current government, the people might decide to take matters into their own hands. The presence of the Cubans probably makes the military paranoid, too.
Bottom line: the U.S. is more worried about political control than they are in humanitarian efforts. Hence, bullets and soldiers before food and medical supplies. It’s sickening. Look on Haiti, and as with Katrina, behold the real face of American empire.
Most land. Some are recovered in other ways (in the air, picked up wherever they crash, etc.) Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) come in a large variety of sizes and types these days. The smallest are about the size of a large model airplane. The largest are the size of first generation jet fighters. I don’t know of any that are suited for doing anything over Haiti beyond taking pictures – which might be a useful thing.
Haiti didn’t have much government to begin with, and has basically none now beyond local authorities. That’s something that any politician thinking about a long term effort there would worry about. At least, any with a functioning brain would.
What an irresponsibly sensational post. Was even the most cursory investigation out of the question? Screw that, how about a slightly critical eye. The US military is not in charge, the Us government is not in charge. Some of you need to make up your minds, do you want to respect another country’s sovereignty,or not? Do you want to cooperate with the UN, or not?
Could the MSF’s plane been waved off with good reason? Spoiler: yes, and more than one. It was not our call, and ignoring the priorities set by the UN and Haitians would likely have killed far more than any lack of MSF services. If the doctors have no place to work, and no crowd control, they get in the way and their supplies are useless, or worse.
You are out of tune with the current politics there. This is a democratically elected government that is not universally hated. After some four years, UN peacekeeping and a number of NGOS in spite of diminished financial aid from the US the country has seemed nearer to turning things around than in decades.
I know there is a move to bring back Aristide. I really am not well enough informed to have an opinion on that but feel that is not a good idea. Granted he was illegitimately removed from office .
And you are even less informed than those of us who are searching available information as to the reasons for a delay of over a week in delivering aid,
It has been several MSF planes that were refused landing. Read the article.
and Haiti is usually listed as the most corrupt country in the western hemisphere
Bullshit!, they were the first to arrive and the only people capable of opening it. The Haitian government asked them to take over and it took hours to the local mall cops to move their cars. They are sitting on nothing [edited by mod], it can’t be moved. [edited by mod].
[Modnote; Please, no personal attacks]
In times of peace the military has a lot of portable stuff (including ATC towers and navaids) around just waiting to go into action. I would imagine that after the last 8 years very little that isn’t in Iraq or Afghanistan is lying around in any condition to go anywhere as well as the things needed to take it. Local Naval resources are probably about it and I doubt there are a lot of those in the region.
CNN reporters are lying and the photos of supplies stacked up are just photoshopped.?
As Talking Stick said, read the article linked to in the OP. Just click on the highlighted words — it’s not difficult.
Again, bullshit. If you’d been searching for anything other than anecdotal reports from a few, you’d know better.We didn’t refuse the flights, we aren’t sitting on supplies. That they aren’t getting through is lot more complicated. The UN’s point man was killed in the quake, it’s the Capitol, and most everything is destroyed. How [edited by mod] would you suggest they move the MSF’s supplies if all the fuel is needed for heavy machinery? Do you even know what the number one priority for saving lives is? Unless you’d support a US takeover and occupation, [edited by mod] about what were supposedly not doing.
[Modnote: once again, please do not personally attack commenters. It is possible to get your point across without vile references, thank you.]
Do you and Wombat no what anecdotal reports are? 2.5 and you think CNN has the overview?
I did, try reading and addressing my points, it’s hard.
Here is another blog that is bringing some of the stories of Haiti. It is done by a UN family living in Haiti who were on vacation in Miami when the quake struck. Mark is most eloquent. Be prepared to cry.
http://haititales.wordpress.com/
@moderator: Sorry, I’ll be nice, but this infuriating. Opinions are one thing, blatant, agenda driven falsehoods and distortions are another.Add smug to the mix and I see red. It won’t happen again.
Of course. Extract the victims, treat and stabilize injuries, water, food, shelter. The search and rescue teams got there and as far as I can tell performed well. I have no notion of whether there were enough but no reports to the contrary..No heavy machinery has gotten there. Now it is too late for it to save significant or even likely one life.
There is no higher priority than medical treatment. And the reports of refusal of MSF access are much confirmed to be beyond anecdotal.
A trickle of water and food has been getting in only the past 24-48 hr. Status as of today, day 9, would be acceptable for day 2 or 3 at most. There is just too much evidence that there is a stall. Several of us have been speculating on the causes. But the stall cannot be denied
You either don’t know what you’re talking about, or are hoping that the relative ignorance of the average reader with regards to the situation in Haiti will help win your point.
The current government is the creature of the U.S. and its allies, including in the UN. It is a hated government installed in 2004, which ousted the elected president, who now resides in exile in South Africa.
Consider the quote from a Jan. 4, 2010 letter from the head of the Association of American Jurists to the president of the OAS (PDF):
For a more vivid picture of the unrest in Haiti, take a look at this video of a shooting by Brazilian UN troops from the pack of a pick up at mourners leaving the funeral of liberation theology priest Father Jean-Juste last June. (Photo analysis here. Story here.)
Project Censored featured UN troops “massacre” of Haitian civilians as one of their main censored stories of 2008.
No one is refuting the MSF stories, or the misery portrayed by CNN.
But they are all anecdotal to the required triage. I am refuting your conclusions and, your inflammatory assertions about the military’s response.
“There is no higher priority than medical treatment” Public health is the highest priority, and it requires triage that isn’t immediately apparent.
The MSF story is horrendous, but to assume it was needless is unsupportable and irresponsible. There’s a reason your instructed to put your own oxygen mask on before attending your children. Can you not see the problems with putting ten patients ahead of thousands? How many MSF workers do you think it would take to handle a cholera outbreak? They set up shop, hundred start migrating to their site, police are diverted, roads are blocked and thousands of currently healthy people die.
Yet another thing that we used to be really good at in this country, wasted and wrecked by self-centered idiots.
If there was one thing that our military was once indisputably good at, it was getting stuff to out of the way places and building airfields, bridges, roads, hospitals, and tent cities fast. I bet we’d get a lot more security out of sending Seabees and Marines across a beach after every a disaster, with bulldozers in front, truck convoys behind, and helicopters overhead than we do from drone bombing. It isn’t as if Haiti is even far away.
Unfortunately, we’ve killed our Marines and Seabees or planted them halfway around the world where their talents are spent winning hearts and minds by killing people and blowing up bridges, roads, and cities. Couldn’t waste them on Katrina then. Can’t waste them on Haiti now.
All of this should have been organized and in place before the earthquake caused all this massive damage. The United States, particularly its racist kill-happy paranoid Christian(!!!) soldiers are not doing whatever needs to be done at the speed that would have been possible before the airport tower went down.
I’m pretty sure that war criminal generals used Haiti to test out our earthquake-causing brutal racist equipment.
Question. When has the US military EVER done a peacekeeping mission? Seriously. A PEACEKEEPING mission. They are not trained for anything like this. Never were intended for anything like this. Saying, “they have to secure the area” blah, blah, blah isn’t being honest either. Howz the security right now in Iraq? Afghanistan? They aren’t even trained for security there either. They are a killing machine with the latest military hardware. Not exactly the boyscouts coming to save the day. It’s great they want to help. Sure. Get the hell out of the way and let the professionals deal with it.
I am mystified.
Where does anything you say refute what I said?
Your “triage plan” sounds about right for day nine
That’s not rapid response triage.
There were some several thousands likely near 100,000 traumatic injuries. Now because of delays thousands more unable to get clean if any water and no food there are dead or near death.
Just what do you imagine my “agenda” to be?
No, responding to your points @68, which primarily consist of “Bullshit!” and [edited by mod] is easy: when a post is so content-free, one doesn’t even have to break a sweat.
@72, you ask “How [edited by mod] would you suggest they move the MSF’s supplies?” The issue isn’t moving the MSF’s supplies, it’s letting the [edited by poster] plane land at the [edited by poster] airport. Let MSF and the people they can contact on the ground worry about that.
And I’d further like to suggest that if you think it’s difficult moving the supplies from the Port-au-Prince airport, it’s even more difficult moving them from the Dominican Republic.
The U.S. military has no business blocking humanitarian aid to Haiti. That’s all.
I tried. Perhaps you could document your assertion:
Perhaps you are parsing your words. After all, the government is not “universally” hated. It has its supporters. I gave evidence that the UN peacekeepers have not in fact been helping the people of Haiti, unless you consider helping repression to be help.
Just how is this country (or was this country) “nearer to turning things around”? I guess that you didn’t say they did turn things around, and were just “nearer”. My contention is that the impression you give of the present government being supported and improving the conditions of the country
First. I think you should identify yourself as one who is wanting to return Aristide to power.
You of course are entitled to your perspective through that lens and you have given it clearly.
I also commented that I accept that Aristide was removed illegally by most measures. But I do not think that is justification enough for his return. His tenure was hardly unvarnished. It is irresponsible to seek another violent revolution which would surely follow any current or efforts in the immediate future.
However there are many reports in the media and other sources describing conditions in Haiti as improving. Yes there have been UN abuses. They have been dealt with and that situation is improved. I was not parsing but simply challenging your description which suggested worst than Auschwitz. I was describing a relatively stable situation, better than in decades. I stick with that opinion.
Exactly
It is not my decision whether Aristide should return to power. That should be the democratic decision of the Haitian people. He should be allowed back in the country and he and his party allowed to participate in elections. I find much in the Aristide regime that I did not support; I have no party or group in Haiti that I find exemplary.
As for this observation:
I find the first sentence unsupported and oddly stated. I find the second sentence, about my “description” to be false. I never suggested it was “worst [sic] than Auschwitz.”
It’s like any other airport:
you have x many places where you can put planes on the ground,
and y many places planes can land (which is a lot fewer),
and it takes z time for each plane to land, unload, and get off the ground again (with or without fueling).
That’s part of why you get backups at airports.
Not saying they couldn’t do better at it, though. Medical aid, food, and water ought to be high priorities, especially when a group is bringing in an entire hospital.
You don’t have any points.
Now slow down and read what people are actually saying.
I think the tower is currently a pile of rubble.
Sorry I was not around for comments – a very long day job stretch here kept me tied up.
My concern about all of this is that even when MSF has been trying to coordinate with the Special Forces command running the airport, and getting permission to land even smaller planes they are then diverted again. This is ridiculous.
Tonight on CNN, Cooper and Gupta were just speaking of all this – telling of doctors unable to perform surgery due to the simple lack of items like surgical gloves for example. And noting that these shortages are occurring even though medical supplies have been landed but aren’t not being moved out of the airport because the US/UN/Haitian government (such as it is?) are requiring security with each convoy – though no aide groups are reporting security problems and many have staff living in Haitian neighborhoods with no problem.
The airport is able to handle multiple flights at one time – I believe it was 6 or 8 large planes plus around 10 smaller ones. Clearly not Ohare but with the right priorities, would make due – if the focus were not on landing soldiers and “security”.
If you got past the declarative and supported, BS, you would understand that the US Military isn’t “blocking” anything. It’s not their decision. They are facilitating the a relief plan not of their making.
“Let MSF and the people they can contact on the ground worry about that.”
What do you not understand about the triage being conducted? The MSF doesn’t have the wider overview required to make those decisions. You can’t give priority to the needs of MSF at the risk of the entire population. You’re assumptions are simply wrong. Again, the US military isn’t running the operation,and to assert the decisions are being made capriciously is irresponsible.
Your intentions may be good, but your agenda, is to indentify fault and place blame. It’s irresponsible sensationalism and it fuels false rumors and misplaced anger
“Your “triage plan” sounds about right for day nine. That’s not rapid response triage.”
Okay, you’re clearly uninformed on this, and it’s easy enough for you to get a handle om it, but you have want to.
“Now because of delays thousands more unable to get clean if any water and no food there are dead or near death.”
No doubt, but you’re intent on finding non existent reasons for the delays.
And apparently unwilling to consider the obvious. unwilling
By all means PJ, enlighten me as to what I misunderstood in my reading and replying to the two Warbler and Wombat. And please, if it’s not too much trouble, point out the errors in my assertions. Apparently they were so grave as to make them non existent, much less points. How can I hope to improve my reasoning skills without guidance Sensei?
With respect, the security issue is not just for the doctors safety, it’s the entire population. There’s currently little room for them to work. Wherever they set up shop, with capabilities to treat a few patients at a time, hundreds gather with all the attendant concerns. Access gets blocked, resources get diverted, and thousands may be put at risk. The infrastructure, such as it was, is destroyed. 2 million people and no sewage. Few roads to open the markets etc. The MSF story is hideous, but it’s a snapshot. Imagine the horrors of a cholera outbreak.
If you are describing the system of priorities under which the military and others directing the response are operating you are confirming my assessment of the situation as being miserably managed, causing untold deaths and misery.
What you describe is not appropriate for immediate response to a natural disaster, Katrina or this one.. It sounds like those plans I have read that are for violent urban revolution and focused on physical structure and guns not the specific needs of the suffering patient individuals. Yes they need latrines and disposal of bodies (which is one thing being done relatively speedily) But clean water and antibiotics soon enough will do more to avoid cholera (which does not even have a reported incidence in Haiti.)
My agenda is to direct attention to the proven delays and stimulate discovery of causes. . You have given me one big one.. Inept planning and execution.
That’s absurd.
!. There is no evidence that the medical personnel are being hampered by crowds of rioting black folks.
2. There is no endemic cholera in Haiti.
Sorry – as far as I know, you were not on the briefing call with the JSOC commander and USAID lead in Haiti. JSOC is controlling the airport and who lands when.
Security is of course one concern for all parties in Haiti but all reports are that violence is lower than pre-quake, that medical teams who have gotten into the country are operating with no security problems and that teams like MSF who have an existing presence in Haiti and are well aware of the communities are not requesting security for their operations. They in fact are the experts in a situation like this – as are several other major aid groups and they are considerably more knowledgeable about what is needed and where than the US military in this case.
http://www.health24.com/news/Malaria/1-925,54248.asp
not only cholera
You are [moderated]. Triage by definition is rapid response.
“If you are describing the system of priorities under which the military and others directing the response are operating you are confirming my assessment of the situation as being miserably managed, causing untold deaths and misery.”
I wasn’t describing, I was pointing out a few of the obvious variables, unconsidered in your assessment.
“What you describe is not appropriate for immediate response to a natural disaster…
Really? You’re apparently unaware that the response plan in effect, from the outset, is the same plan used successfully for a number of years, for multiple natural disasters, the last time being the Tsunami. There have no doubt been many unique challenges, and hopefully lessons will be learned. But your inflammatory assertions imply not only gross incompetence by some of the best trained teams from around the world, but a casual indifference to the suffering.
“There were some several thousands likely near 100,000 traumatic injuries…” As I recall, MSF said running wide open with everything they need, they could perform close to 100 surgeries per day. How’s the math work out for your freshly created, by you, “rapid response” triage?
Your [moderated], stop it.
No I wasn’t on the call, but from the interviews I’ve heard joined by JSOC reps, they are operating the airport because of their unique qualifications, and their decisions are based on best facilitating the priorities given to them from outside.
Whether MSF is requesting security or not is not the issue I was raising, and resources are absolutely being diverted to the temporary hospitals. I guess you missed the footage yesterday of the riot police pushing the crowds back from one of the temp hospitals that was well beyond its capacity. Am I wrong about the JSOC expertise in handling logistics at the airport?
“They in fact are the experts in a situation like this – as are several other major aid groups and they are considerably more knowledgeable about what is needed and where than the US military in this case.”
That’s a bold statement by anyone’s standards, even if emergency medical was all that was needed. But of course there is much more needed, no? How about opening supply routes to keep the relatively healthy people alive or dealing with the raw sewage of 2 million people, and the emergency evacuation of thousands. By the way, some temporary hospitals currently in the field report having to be surrounded by armed Marines to secure the antibiotics and what other supplies they do have. It’s not the violence or looting, its the horrendous suffering that can overwhelm and collapse the relief effort. I’m skeptical of MSF’s capacity to know where and why everything needs to go, especially, as you say, in situations like this. But either way, thanks for the attitude.
“There is no evidence that the medical personnel are being hampered by crowds of rioting black folks”
Not that I ever said anything remotely like that, but hey, don’t let that get in your way.such thing, or anything remotely like it.
“There is no endemic cholera in Haiti.”
It was a hypothetical to illustrate a more general point. How about diarrhea, malaria or any of the other diseases that thrive when there’s a lack of sanitation and clean water?
No revisions in your assessment of the plan in place being inappropriate for natural disasters? I mean, in light of the info about the plan that is actually in operation? BTW, I don’t give responses to things you don’t actually write, please extend me the same courtesy.
Sounds like communication equipment – supposedly one of the highest priorities – also got turned away at the airport multiple times, per Financial Times writer Benedict Mander, reporting from Port-au-Prince: