|
MD Preferred Calling on Thousands
to Aid Haitian Earthquake Victims
As the human tragedy unfolds in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, MD Preferred Services is calling on their entire network of physicians and professionals to assist Doctors Without Borders in their relief efforts.
"The work that Doctors Without Borders does around the world is truly amazing and their assistance in Haiti is needed now more than ever," said Michael O'Malley, CEO of MD Preferred Services. "We are hopeful that the thousands of professionals within the MD Preferred Service network and the thousands of medical professionals using the network will make it a priority to support, in any way that they can, Doctors Without Borders and the people affected in Haiti."
MD Preferred Services, which maintains online physician service directories in Legal Services, Financial Advisory Services, Relocation & Real Estate Services, Insurance Services, Physician Job Services and Travel Services, asks that their service partners forward this request for aid to their staff and clients and that Residency & Fellowship Directors forward this special edition to their physicians. All forms of assistance both medical and financial are going to be needed in the coming days, weeks and months. All travel and allied travel services booked through the MD Preferred Travel Site will generate an immediate donation to Doctors Without Borders.
Please read the release from Doctors Without Borders below.
A special site has been set up to handle offers of assistance and financial contributions.
You will find links at the end of the article.
|
Haiti: MSF Teams Set up Clinics to Treat Injured After Facilities Are Damaged
The first reports are now emerging from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams who were already working on medical projects Haiti. They are treating hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities.
The Martissant health center in a poor area of Port-au-Prince had to be evacuated after the earthquake because it was damaged and unstable. The patients are now in tents in the grounds and the medical staff have been dealing with a flow of casualties from the town. They have already treated between 300 and 350 people, mainly for trauma injuries and fractures. Among them are 50 people suffering from burns-some of them severe-many of them caused by domestic gas containers exploding in collapsing buidings. At the Pachot rehabilitation center another 300 to 400 people have been treated. In one of MSF's adminstrative offices in Petionville, another part of Port-au-Prince, a tent clinic there has seen at least 200 injured people. More are getting assistance at what was the Solidarite maternity hospital, which was seriously damaged.
One of MSF's coordinator's there, Hans van Dillen, confirmed that Port-au-Prince was quite unable to cope with the scale of the disaster. "There are hunderds of thousands of people who are sleeping in the streets because they are homeless," said van Dillen. "We see open fractures, head injuries. The problem is that we can not forward people to proper surgery at this stage."
So many of the city's medical facilities have been damaged, healthcare is severely disrupted at precisely the moment when medical needs are high.
|
