CJP’s emergency response to Haiti earthquake

Following last week’s devastating earthquake, CJP sent out a request to the Jewish community, for contributions to disaster relief efforts in order to save lives and ease the suffering of survivors.

As of Monday, January 25, CJP has raised more than $300,000, and we have begun wiring these funds to our recipient organizations, Partners In Health (PIH) and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). We continue to raise funds for our Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. One hundred percent of contributions to this fund will be used for emergency relief and rebuilding in Haiti. All contributions are fully tax-deductible.

Updates from Partners In Health and JDC

PIH update:

January 22, 2010

January 22, 2010 Update

  • The PIH team has now established 24 functional operating rooms (ORs) throughout Haiti, providing round-the-clock surgery and medical care to earthquake survivors.  Twelve of these ORs are at the central University Hospital in Port-au-Prince (HUEH), which was nearly uninhabitable at this time last week. 

  • PIH has also had great success assembling surgical teams, transporting them to Haiti, and putting them immediately to work. At last count, more than 150 surgeons, nurses, anesthetists and other specialists had arrived, allowing ORs to run at full capacity 24 hours a day.

  • There continues to be a great need for additional medicines (antibiotics, anesthesia and narcotics), medical equipment (anesthesia machines and x-rays), medical supplies (IVs, tubing, irrigating saline), and water.

  • PIH is beginning a phase of active case-finding for injured people, neighborhood by neighborhood, in the capital. A team of PIH’s Haitian doctors is systematically seeking out and bringing medical care to communities of people in Port-au-Prince that have not received any relief services in the 10 days since the earthquake.

  • Despite these successes, recurring aftershocks continue to disrupt the ability to provide desperately needed care and inflict further terror on already traumatized patients. The hospital where PIH works in St. Marc was temporarily evacuated this morning after a 4.4 aftershock, which caused cracks in the walls and floors. A team of structural engineers rushed to assess the situation. Though the hospital is again up and running, precious time was lost, and patients remain frightened.

  • Dr. Malcolm Smith, a surgeon stationed at the hospital in St. Marc, wrote this afternoon: “We will soon need coordinated surgical supply, but planning for restocking very difficult as country has no distribution network. Partners In Health have been very good at helping, and have 2 reps at airport [to meet planes of supplies and personnel]… But surgical risks same here at St Marc as in capital, with numbers of cases outstripping resources. Worried that we will get COMPLETELY stopped by something we have not thought about.”

For more information, including photographs, blogs from our doctors on the ground, and extensive media coverage of PIH, please visit their website, www.pih.org.

Click here for PIH archived updates....

JDC update:

Tuesday, January 19

  • JDC is working with the Medical Corps of the Israel Defense Force whose team of medical professionals landed in Haiti this past Friday. This team has set up a field hospital on a soccer field near the city center and is now caring for hundreds of wounded citizens. JDC’s donated funds purchased medical equipment, including infant incubators for a neonatal unit and orthopedic devices. A baby was born in the unit over the weekend; the first-time mother named her new son “Israel.”

  • Heart to Heart International, a U.S. nongovernmental organization (NGO) already operating on the ground in Haiti, is providing emergency medical assistance with equipment and supplies purchased by JDC. Heart to Heart International works in 60 countries and has partnered with JDC in the past to provide medical equipment and medical supplies to vulnerable Jewish communities around the world.

  • Ready-to-eat food and clean water are among the most pressing needs at this stage. JDC is supporting a soup kitchen operated by EcoWorks International, a not-for-profit NGO working with poor communities around the world to help break the cycle of poverty through the development of sustainable projects that promote self-reliance, improvement of standards of living, and protection of natural resources. EcoWorks already has an operational presence in Haiti with a strong network of grassroots organizations, and is experienced in emergency relief and reconstruction, having worked in countries destroyed by natural disasters (Armenia) and by war or genocide (Somalia, Rwanda).