Food (Safety Security) - Haiti RS

submitted by John Carroll

FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2016 file photo, banana and coconut trees are bent and broken along a southern coast road near the town of Roche-a-Bateau, Haiti, left behind by Hurricane Matthew. Hundreds of thousands of people in southern Haiti are facing food shortages three months after the storm destroyed crops and livestock in the region, international aid organization Oxfam said Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)  (The Associated Press)

Associated Press - January 4, 2017

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –  Hundreds of thousands of people in southern Haiti are facing food shortages three months after Hurricane Matthew destroyed crops and livestock in the region, an international aid organization said Wednesday.

A "very poor" harvest is expected over the next two months in the South and Grand Anse departments of the southern Haitian peninsula, an area where most people depend on subsistence farming to survive, Oxfam said in a report calling for more support for a U.N. assistance fund.

The U.N. announced it would provide $139 million in assistance to the region, but that program is underfunded by 38 percent, the aid group said.

Photo by John Carroll

blogs.pjstar.com - by John Carroll, MD - November 2, 2016

October 27, 2016

“The surest way to be caught flatfooted by disasters is to not know or understand, or else ignore, the value of the land and people who should have been protected, commensurate with the degree to which others depend on what they produce. This is the case with Haiti’s disregard for the values of the Greater South Region which is basically all that lies below and west of the crossroads of Leogane.”

Stuart Leiderman

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We left Cayes early this morning and headed south and west. And the further we traveled, Matthew’s wrath and destruction was even more horrific. Coconut and palm trees were snapped or uprooted everywhere. Houses were smashed. Roofs were missing. And debris littered the beach down the entire coast. Police stations, courthouses, and churches were destroyed everywhere.

by John A. Carroll, MD - www.haitianhearts.org

October 29, 2016

Family from Chantal just told me that a zone called LaCotte has much cholera. Five people in same house died. Unable to give exact date.

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October 29, 2016

Port Salut hospital served by two Cuban docs--very nice. Fidel and his brother also supplied the Ringers Lactate for the hospital . . .

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October 29, 2016

On Thursday spent day on Southern coast--Cayes, Torbeck, Port Salut, Coteaux, Damassin, Port a Pigment, Kalapa, Chardonnieres. We were fording some small creeks/rivers in the truck, but Les Anglais River too deep and wide so we stopped. The trucks were very few here cause road in South so horrible. I would imagine Hiroshima like this. Port Salut CTC had 30 patients according to nurse last week but only 3 when I was there. Port Salut is a MSPP hospital and made of cement and seemed structurally sound even though it was right on beach. 

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October 29, 2016

The biggest problems I see are lack of food and water for almost 4 weeks now. The roofs are getting patched with tarp or corrugated metal ("toll"). Groups of kids run after the vehicle looking for food.

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October 29, 2016