Men bathe in the evening in a branch of the Artibonite River outside Saint-Marc. Haiti's cholera outbreak in 2010 began about 60 miles upstream from here.
In the events after Hurricane Doria in New Jersey in 1971, people waded through the stagnant waters. They succumbed to cholera and dysentery. The difference between New Jersey and Haiti is infrastructure. When the illnesses hit folks that never intended to contract them, we had emergency rooms responsive to their emergency.
Cholera and dysentery are public health issues. Haiti has no sincere infrastructure to address some of the most basic needs of its people. Not even the idea of sustainable earthquake proof structures. So, to expect an international effort to operate in a void of government structure is completely unrealistic. These issues are huge investments by a society including education in basic hygiene.
Not quite 10 months after Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake, a more insidious disaster struck: cholera.
Haiti hadn't seen cholera for at least a century. Then suddenly, the first cases appeared in the central highlands near a camp for United Nations peacekeeping forces.
Since then the disease has struck one out of every 16 Haitians — nearly 640,000 people. It has killed 8,000.
The disease struck with explosive force. Within two days of the first cases, a hospital 60 miles away was admitting a new cholera patient every 3 1/2 minutes.
"Part of the reason we think the outbreak grew so quickly was the Haitian population had no immunity to cholera," says Daniele Lantagne, an environmental engineer at Tufts University. "Something like when the Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas, and it burned through the native populations."...
Every nation contributing to the SURVIVAL of what remained of the Haitian population was extremely challenged to set up any form of triage, yet alone a national health department. Haiti is the type of country where when monies are moved to Haiti, the needs of the country soak it up like a sponge. When those dynamics occur there is no efficiency involved in spending it. The spending happens in emergent ways to serve the populous.
Now, to say that is exactly the problem is a gross error. The United Nations acted to prevent corruption within Haiti's government from removing benefits of monies given to Haiti. So, to say the United Nations is the problem is completely idiotic. The problem is Haiti's corruption and the complete inability of its people to move into productive lives, heck, even learned lives.
I really don't care how small the country is, building infrastructure from NOTHING, takes a lot of money and a sustained effort. This is ridiculous.
What needs to be addressed is the lack of sovereign status of Haiti and whom exactly is able to lead and able to build the country into a civilized nation with sustainable jobs and growth from NOTHING.
There is also some very real and stark realities for the Haitian people. They live on a highly dynamic and dangerous fault. They live on a small plate chronically 'acted on' by the North American Plate. The NA Plate grids away at that smaller plate. It is that PROCESS that leads to 'the big one' from time to time to this nation. Japan is no different, but, Japan has infrastructure. Even Japan has woefully inadequate infrastructure to face down a dynamic Earth.
Criticism of the United Nations sincerely belongs to groups seeking to always defeat it like the American GOP. After all, the UN can't have its own assets, its own military or its own ability to support its mission.
NOW. When Haitian sovereignty and the UN's right to exist is more than adequately addressed; then and only then any entity has a right to criticism!!!
Every nation contributing to the SURVIVAL of what remained of the Haitian population was extremely challenged to set up any form of triage, yet alone a national health department. Haiti is the type of country where when monies are moved to Haiti, the needs of the country soak it up like a sponge. When those dynamics occur there is no efficiency involved in spending it. The spending happens in emergent ways to serve the populous.
Now, to say that is exactly the problem is a gross error. The United Nations acted to prevent corruption within Haiti's government from removing benefits of monies given to Haiti. So, to say the United Nations is the problem is completely idiotic. The problem is Haiti's corruption and the complete inability of its people to move into productive lives, heck, even learned lives.
I really don't care how small the country is, building infrastructure from NOTHING, takes a lot of money and a sustained effort. This is ridiculous.
What needs to be addressed is the lack of sovereign status of Haiti and whom exactly is able to lead and able to build the country into a civilized nation with sustainable jobs and growth from NOTHING.
There is also some very real and stark realities for the Haitian people. They live on a highly dynamic and dangerous fault. They live on a small plate chronically 'acted on' by the North American Plate. The NA Plate grids away at that smaller plate. It is that PROCESS that leads to 'the big one' from time to time to this nation. Japan is no different, but, Japan has infrastructure. Even Japan has woefully inadequate infrastructure to face down a dynamic Earth.
Criticism of the United Nations sincerely belongs to groups seeking to always defeat it like the American GOP. After all, the UN can't have its own assets, its own military or its own ability to support its mission.
NOW. When Haitian sovereignty and the UN's right to exist is more than adequately addressed; then and only then any entity has a right to criticism!!!
