How we decide who to save.

bookitty said:
My response was overly harsh as well, please accept my apologies for that.

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What can we do? Not much. At this point, there are numerous charities that feed the poor or encourage small local businesses. There are none that focus on getting native resources back into the hands of the people.
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Thank You, and Hear Hear!

May MEN rise to help those in need, God seems busy...
 
bookitty said:
We have the news to let us know about the old-age home ... The people in that article may have been helped by its publication. If not, they are dead and dying...
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I have to wonder ... did the journalists that reported this atrocity do everything in their power after the report was filed to get help to these people, get these people somewhere that they could be helped, or help these people themselves?

Or did the journalists simply turn and walk away once they had finished with their report, go back to their air-conditioned trailers, take a shower, and have a hot meal without any second thought?

I mean, it's one thing to say, "A group of journalists ignored their assignment to rescue 85 elderly victims of the Haitian earthquake and transport them to a medical aid station. Film at eleven."

It's quite another to say, "Look at these poor people. Someone should help them. Film at eleven ... and ... cut. Okay, pack up and let's head back."

I'd hate to find out that it was more the latter than the former.
 
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bookitty said:
General civility. Seriously?

How can you even imply that they are not doing everything they can? Perhaps it simply isn't enough.

Exactly how are you defining unaffected? Those who have adequate drinking water? Food? Unbroken limbs? At what point are people unaffected enough to qualify as a threat to "general civility" under your well-fed opinion.
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Canceled due to bookitty's next post.
 
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An update:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_waiting_to_die
"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Earthquake survivors have brought food and some medicine to dying residents in the rubble of a Haiti nursing home, but large-scale foreign aid had yet to reach dozens there Monday."
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Even without foreign aid, these people have stepped up to do what they can and share what little they have. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a nice cry.
 
There are approximately 1.5 million people who are homeless in Haiti. They have no food, no water, no ID papers and definitely no money. How are these people supposed to help their fellow Haitians who are also without food, water or medication??

If these nursing home residents did manage to get to a hospital, the hospitals in Haiti at the best of times don't have enough medical resources to properly care for their patients, they definitely don't have them now to care not only for those injured in the earthquakes but those elderly residents that are without medication.

This situation is nothing like Hurricane Katrina where people who could help had access to boats, food and water and could take survivors to places where they could be properly housed and cared for. These people have nothing, absolutely nothing and there is nowhere to go that does have any resources.

Can it be called looting when you and the rest of the population have nothing or should it at that stage be called foraging to keep you and your family alive to see another day?
 
Cainkane1 said:
Captain Jack Finklebaum my good jewish friend and atheist mentor once said that a society should be judged by the way it treats its dissenters and helpless people. Haiti is not a good society. I'm sure most of them are decent enough but to allow this sort of thing to happen to elderly people is barbaric.
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I would agree with you 100% if the situation was a normal situation. But in this sort of total disaster, when saving one person means the death of another, one had to make horrible choices. As one can see, they are being helped with what's little is left.
 
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I've read that a couple of civilian crane ships are en route for offloading heavy equipment. A brilliant idea! The main bottleneck seems to be a means to get ships (with much greater cargo capacities) unloaded with Haiti's main sea port demolished. Without equipment capable of clearing roads many of the supplies coming by air and sea are mostly sitting around waiting. Let's hope that these, a bit more organization, more medical facilities, and ramped up distribution of necessities will start to quell the increasing unrest and anarchy displayed over the past couple days.

It would be nice if the long-term result of this entire enterprise were a self-sufficient Haiti!
 
leonAzul said:
You need to be better informed of the geography involved. The only way in to the heart of the city is through the port, to the West. The neighborhood in question is to the North of P-a-P with several mountains in between.

Help may come sooner from Saint Marc, if they can patch up their own and get organized.

Anything from Les Cayes, Aquin, Camp Perrin, or Jeremie is going to have to wait a good while: the epicenter was due West of P-a-P knocking out all access to the the Southwest.
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How does any of this relate to the OP?

You send in teams of rubble rescuers. Lots of money, equipment, news coverage, great interest.

On the way to the rescue site they pass a couple dozen desperate nursing home patients lying in the dirt amid rats and thieves. The rescuers move on.

The level of desperation, chance to salvage, most cost effective rescue, and so on are not driving the decisions. Digging people out of the rubble takes on great urgency. Helping the helpless diapered old person flailing in the dirt has no worth.
 
Riayn said:
There are approximately 1.5 million people who are homeless in Haiti. They have no food, no water, no ID papers and definitely no money. How are these people supposed to help their fellow Haitians who are also without food, water or medication??..
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Funny that lots of Haitians seem to be helping others. You make it sound like they are incapable and all need rescue from the competent outsiders.

I think you need to reassess this position.
 
bookitty said:
An update:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_waiting_to_die


Even without foreign aid, these people have stepped up to do what they can and share what little they have. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a nice cry.
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Awesome...not the good cry, but that those in need WERE assisted if only minimally...

These are the kinds of things that destroy or full unite a people. I'll hope for the later.
 
skeptigirl said:
Funny that lots of Haitians seem to be helping others. You make it sound like they are incapable and all need rescue from the competent outsiders.

I think you need to reassess this position.
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This is a good point (missing one detail) which is somewhat cleared up by looking at a map. There is a lot of Haiti that isn't its capital city.

The one missing detail is that Port Au Prince is the center of gravity of Haiti. Of all the places for an earthquake to hit Haiti, particularly of this magnitude, Port Au Prince is the worst case scenario. President Preval has only so many hours in the day. His nation gets fed billions in aid each year. He is keenly aware of how capable, or less so, his government is, so he has to share time between being able (with his critical infrastructure in Port Au Prince in tatters) to do things, to be seen to do things, and to coordinate the deluge of assistance being offered from abroad. I expect he's busting his butt to keep his head above water.

I am sure you are right in your general point, that a lot of Haitians are helping their Haitians. Any of us would help our neighbors when bad things come down. But for whatever reason, the media doesn't wish to latch onto those narratives.

Why do you think that is?

In part, it is due to micro level assistance being finite in reach and scope. The scale of the mess this earthquake generated is profound, possibly an order of magnitude more damaging than a large hurricane hitting Haiti.

The key coordinating capability (government, the hub of most nations' collective activity) is the site of the disaster. The needs are greater than what the government itself can handle alone, unless you want the aid and assistance to come slowly. From your OP sentiment, you are not interested in slow arrival of aid, and neither are those who wish to be of assistance. What you seem to have demanded is an omniscience on the part of an aid program that is falling in on a chaotic mess, where re-establishing lines of communication / logistics from the ground up is as much part of the mission as is the delivery of aid and assistance to the many who are stuck in a very bad situation.

I think you are asking too much, and being needlessly critical and most importantly, impatient.

ETA: From an NBC news story. This isn't just a natural disaster of major import, it's got elements of the breakdown of the social fabric. Imagine a quake in CA where San Quentin breaks open and all the inmates get out.
Elsewhere, overwhelmed surgeons appealed for anesthetics, scalpels, and saws for cutting off crushed limbs. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, visiting one hospital, reported its staff had to use vodka to sterilize equipment. "It's astonishing what the Haitians have been able to accomplish," he said.

Violence added to complications in places. Medical relief workers said they were treating gunshot wounds in addition to broken bones and other quake-related injuries. Nighttime was especially perilous and locals were forming night brigades and machete-armed mobs to fight bandits across the capital.

"It gets too dangerous," said Remi Rollin, an armed private security guard hired by a shopkeeper to ward off looters. "After sunset, police shoot on sight."

In the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, gangsters are reassuming control after escaping from the city's notorious main penitentiary and police urge citizens to take justice into their own hands.

"If you don't kill the criminals, they will all come back," a Haitian police officer shouted over a loudspeaker.
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DR
 
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luchog said:
Mostly, it's a nation riddled with the culture of corruption from top to bottom, government and industry alike. Past asistance and relief efforts have been greatly hampered by the corrupt kleptocratic Haitian government.
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I normally dislike the term kleptocratic because it has become such a militant Left code word for "Evil Captalist" but in the case of the Haitian government it is an accurate description.
And, worse then that, they are incredibly inept at providing basic services.
They make the worst Chicago ward heeler or Mexican Government Official look like rank amateurs when it comes to corruption.
ANd I hope not one penny of the relief money for Haiti goes through the Haitian government.
 
dudalb said:
I normally dislike the term kleptocratic because it has become such a militant Left code word for "Evil Captalist" but in the case of the Haitian government it is an accurate description.
And, worse then that, they are incredibly inept at providing basic services.
They make the worst Chicago ward heeler or Mexican Government Official look like rank amateurs when it comes to corruption.
ANd I hope not one penny of the relief money for Haiti goes through the Haitian government.
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While that is probably true, I'd like to offer up a bright side narrative about a Haitian helping his neighbors and fellow citizens. Does one's heart good. This is consistent with the idea of Haitians helping Haitians, which seems to be oft overlooked in the media.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34907124/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

The doctor has opened his home to about 100 injured/patients. Good guy doing good stuff.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It wasn't long after Tuesday's earthquake leveled nearly all of the houses next to Claude Surena's that neighbors started showing up at his doorstep.

For years, the 59-year old pediatrician had treated the sick at his two-story hillside home near the center of the Haitian capital.

Suddenly, he was running a triage center, treating more than 100 victims on his shaded, leafy patio with food and supplies salvaged from ruined homes.
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DR
 
Bikewer said:
As a medic when I was in the army, and as a police officer with training in WMD incidents and mass-casualty situations I'm well familiar with the extremely tough decisions that must be made as part of triage.
1. Those that are in need of help, but will survive even if help is delayed.

2. Those that need immediate medical attention to survive.

3. Those that cannot be helped; who's injuries will be fatal anyway, and will take resources away from #1 and #2....

Not a pleasant business.
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Isn't it even worse than that, like putting sever cases of people who should be in group 2 into group 3 because the'd take so many resources that several in group 2 would die?
 
skeptigirl said:
How does any of this relate to the OP?

You send in teams of rubble rescuers. Lots of money, equipment, news coverage, great interest.

On the way to the rescue site they pass a couple dozen desperate nursing home patients lying in the dirt amid rats and thieves
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This is the point. As a matter of fact, there are thousands who are not immediately accessible. Rescue efforts did not "pass a couple dozen desperate nursing home patients" precisely because those rescue efforts have not been able to penetrate to their location.

And if you think that P-a-P is the only productive area that was impacted by this earthquake, then you are misinformed. Les Cayes, Jacmel are crippled. Saint Marc, as a port, has long been abandoned. Gonaîve suffered a debilitating mudslide, from which they are still recovering. Plaine-du-Nord after hurricane Jeanne?…let's not talk about it, for the moment. I only bring it up because the question was asked: Why Don't the Haitians Help Themselves?

ETA

The geography and the topology are very pertinent to the OP: How do we decide whom to save? We cannot save those whom we cannot reach. Within our reach there is triage, and then recovery, hopefully on a better foundation.
 
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skeptigirl said:
Funny that lots of Haitians seem to be helping others. You make it sound like they are incapable and all need rescue from the competent outsiders.

I think you need to reassess this position.
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And I think that you need to live in Haiti for a month or two, in order to gather better evidence…
 
leonAzul said:
This is the point. As a matter of fact, there are thousands who are not immediately accessible. Rescue efforts did not "pass a couple dozen desperate nursing home patients" precisely because those rescue efforts have not been able to penetrate to their location.
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While you have no clue who passed whom on the way to dig people out of the rubble, it was a metaphorical statement. Clearly no one on any rubble rescue mission went looking for any easier to help targets.

leonAzul said:
And if you think that P-a-P is the only productive area that was impacted by this earthquake, then you are misinformed. Les Cayes, Jacmel are crippled. Saint Marc, as a port, has long been abandoned. Gonaîve suffered a debilitating mudslide, from which they are still recovering. Plaine-du-Nord after hurricane Jeanne?…let's not talk about it, for the moment. I only bring it up because the question was asked: Why Don't the Haitians Help Themselves?

ETA

The geography and the topology are very pertinent to the OP: How do we decide whom to save? We cannot save those whom we cannot reach. Within our reach there is triage, and then recovery, hopefully on a better foundation.
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It would appear you just didn't get the gist of the OP. Your defense of rubble diggers is completely misplaced and totally misunderstands the question in the OP.


I suggest you try again or go away.
 
I am going to explain this the best way I can.

It all boils down to resources. There is only X amount of medical equipment and X amount of medical/rescue personnel and in situations like this, they will always be outnumbered by amount of victims.

We see the triage centers and hospitals being overwhelmed by victims, which ties up A LOT of resources. Its hard for these rescue crews to move so many feet without having to enter another collapsed building to search for victims, which again ties up even more resources. This a slow process of saving those who can be saved and hoping those who are still are inaccessible can be saved later.
 
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