Public health response failures in the 2010 Haiti earthquake

Haiti Earthquake

After examining the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake of Jan 2010, it is quite obvious that the impact of this natural disaster will be felt for many years to come and much healing and growth will be needed in the near future in order to bring the people of this country to a decent standard of living. This report will document the many public health challenges that were evident after the earthquake and will provide guidance on how future natural disasters' impacts may be mitigated by wise and prudent action. This after action review of the response will highlight the successes and failures of the efforts provided and make suggestions on how those processes may be improved upon.

Initial Observations

Before anyone may help anyone in such a damaging situation as a major earthquake, an acceptable amount of peace and security must be established or nothing may be accomplished. The sense of chaos, death and despair creates a panicked atmosphere where little may be done to affect the necessary medical treatment that is necessary to save lives and bring peace.

Haiti was quite chaotic as I stumbled through the rubble. A deep sense of lawlessness and fear permeated the destroyed landscape which hampered any type of humanitarian efforts. Information was scarce and there was little communication between the many nongovernmental organizations, military units, domestic police and various other invaders of the nation who had come with the best intentions to help.

In what areas there were security, a more objective examination could take place. In these areas near the capital city of Port Au Prince, the response was quite disorganized. A clear lack of response plan seemed evident as there was little consistency between information discussed amongst people. Rumors and lies soon replaced facts as the scene in these collection of triage areas operated in a fog of confusion and disorder.

After some days elapsed order was slowly being restored and a more objective realization of the public health efforts could be monitored. It turned out that the Haitian government reported that 222,570 people had died; over 300,000 had been injured while 1.3 million were displaced.

4. Sanitation

The public health official must use and combine all the resources available to set and meet these standards in order to ensure that recovery and rebuilding may begin.

Suggestions for Improvement

The most obvious need to help nations and people recover from a natural disaster event such as the one experienced in Haiti is the need to become more organized and prepared. The tragic loss of life and horrors of the violence and disease that have encapsulated this country should not be done in vain. Only when those who are responsible enough to lead this country into a more conservative and reasonable path of action will organization be maximized to its fullest potential.

As a result of this disorganization, there was little guidance direction or purpose. To combat the ill effects of this tendency a disaster response plan at each level of government must be employed. In many third world countries this is unreasonable, and such was the case in Haiti. Disaster response plans are sophisticated instruments of security that the Haitian people are not prepared to deal with at the social, intellectual and emotional levels. The poverty and poor living conditions suggest that basic needs of food and shelter, water and medicine were in dire need before the earthquake struck, and in many ways simply made a bad situation worse.

No one really wanted to own this problem and as a result many of the public health agencies and NGO's operated on their own instincts, self-interests and motivations. While this approach did help in some cases, many times resources were wasted on non-important or non-essential items. While it never appeared that resources were in lacking in quantity, they just seemed to be logistically misplaced. The importance of leadership can guide the logistical challenges into useable solutions when an organized scheme of operation is in place.

Conclusion

The humanitarian community must come to grips with the fact that sometimes less is more and sometimes too much concentration just distorts the problems. Too many people wanting to become heroic often loses sight of what is really important, healing and saving lives. Fortunately this imbalance is based on love and kindness and the willingness to help. Many times the road to hell is paved with intentions, but when these intentions are guided in the right direction and with the right temperance, miracles may happen.