Haití - País en crisis

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29 September 2004: Helping the traumatized in Gonaives

© UNICEF Haiti/2004/Morel

A woman washes clothes in dirty flood water in which cadavers of people and humans are decomposing in Gonaives, Haiti.

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By Patrick Slavin

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, 29 September-"Besides the health risks and real security concerns in Gonaives, my greatest concern for the people is the trauma they have suffered," UNICEF Officer Dr. Ralph Midy told me yesterday.

"So many people I have spoken with are delirious. Near the cathedral, I spoke with a woman who told me she lost all four of her children in the floods, her four boys.  'My sons are gone; they've gone with the water.' She was smiling, and laughing, clearly delirious. The shock and trauma here is a major concern," he said.

Eleven days after Tropical Storm Jeanne barreled across northwestern Haiti, taking the lives of more than 1,500 victims, Gonaives is still sleep on their roofs because interior floors are layered with mud and water. During the day, roofs are also used to dry out and clean personal possessions. The Government of Haiti and the United Nations are preparing 460 work teams that will help the resilient people of Gonaives dig out.

"As the mud dries and hardens, and with deep puddles of unsafe water, another big health threat is airborne microbes," Mr. Midy said who leads UNICEF's HIV/AIDS programs in Haiti. "We have to be ready to combat respiratory infections, pneumonia, tuberculosis, even malaria."

© UNICEF Haiti/2004/Morel

A family lives on a rooftop a week after Hurricane Jeanne-related flooding killed some 1,500 people in Gonaives, Haiti.

Measles is a major child killer in developing countries, especially during humanitarian emergencies when epidemics can breakout in temporary shelters and refugee camps. On top of responding to the country's third humanitarian emergency this year, UNICEF Haiti is continuing with prevention programs. Over the summer, a measles and polio vaccination drive was conducted in Gonaives and reached 90 per cent of targeted children under the age of five.

"That's one of the many reasons why UNICEF is so effective in the 157 countries and territories where our programmes are saving children's lives," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, who visited Gonaives yesterday. "The measles and polio immunizations in Gonaives are protecting thousands of young children today."

Bellamy also visited a triage clinic that has opened at the small State University of Haiti campus in Gonaives. The clinic is staffed with doctors and nurses from the United Nations peacekeeping force. With the city's main hospital badly damaged and closed, Haitians in need of healthcare are being treated at nine temporary clinics.

The university center as of yesterday afternoon had treated 1,850 patients, including ten successful and healthy live births. "Many of the new parents are naming their infants for the Argentinean doctors and nurses who delivered them, that's really heartwarming," said UNICEF Haiti's Representative Francois Gruloos-Ackermans. All of the obstetrical equipment used at the clinic is provided by UNICEF, thanks to the assistance and support of UNICEF donors, worldwide.