Emily reporting from Haiti
Our fellow UN Citizen Ambassador Emily Troutman has spent the past several weeks in Haiti offering her help, recording her experiences and photographing the destruction and now the recovery of the nation.
Recently she has been featured on AOL News (here) describing some of the medical issues now being faced by thousands.
The admirable work of hundreds of doctors and nurses working tirelessly in makeshift hospital camps has already been the focus of numerous international headlines due to the tragic supply shortages they have struggled to work through. However, on top of these hardships there is also increasing worry regarding the future of those who have actually been successfully treated.
As Emily describes, more and more Haitians are finally receiving the surgical treatment they need. However, a growing portion of the population will not only be unable to receive proper physiotherapy for a full recovery, but in the ruins of Port-au-Prince there exists no infrastructure to support the growing numbers of citizens now living with partial-disabilities. Those in the countryside and those individuals now bound to wheelchairs (wheelchairs nowhere to be found) will be even worse off.
St. Nicolas Hospital in Saint Marc, Haiti
Even for those with minor injuries, I can only imagine the atmosphere throughout the swelling outpatient camps that have quickly appeared across the countryside. How would I react? Relief, sadness, hope, frustration? Physical recovery must seem to proceed at a quagmire as your mind races between past and future. Wouldn’t you want to return to your home (or for some start anew) to begin rebuilding your life, to contact extended family, neighbors, friends, yet all the while you’re trapped in the present coping with your injuries – haunting reminders of the past.
This sheltered life has offered me little preparation against reality.
For all of Emily’s recent photo journalism:
Healing Begins in Haiti, but What’s Next for Patients? – AOL News
Signs of Another Survivor in Haiti Don’t Pan Out – AOL News
Photos From Haiti: Life Beyond the Headlines – AOL News
Photos: Back in Haiti, Searching for Friends – AOL News
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