But MSF is different, maybe because it's big enough not to care if it annoys other organizations.So I've enjoyed their current campaign to shame the world about its neglect of the sorrow it's inflicted on Haiti. Now Caribbean Journal has picked up on that campaign: Cholera Treatment in Haiti “Crippled” By Lack of Funds, Supplies. Excerpt:
Cholera treatment in Haiti has been “crippled” by a lack of funds and supplies, according to medical humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.
That has led to “unnecessary” deaths and has increased the risk of further outbreaks during the upcoming rainy season in Haiti, the group said in a release.
“Some of the staff at the cholera treatment centres have not been paid for several months,” said Dr Mamady Traoré, MSF deputy medical coordinator. “Infrastructure and equipment are worn out because they haven’t been maintained and there are frequent shortages of medical supplies. As a result, hygiene precautions that are essential to limiting the spread of the disease are no longer enforced.
In Haiti’s North department, deaths related to cholera have increased since the end of 2012, with a mortality rate topping 4 percent in certain centres.
“Sometimes patients are left without treatment or must pay to obtain it,” she said. “That is intolerable.”
Late last year, the United Nations expanded its anti-cholera initiative, appealing for as much as $2.2 billion to fund Haiti’s government’s plan to eliminate cholera by 2022. (The latter plan was officially released last month.
“Cholera now appears to be seen as a development issue to be resolved over the next 10 years, whereas the current situation still calls for an emergency medical response,” said Duncan McLean, MSF program manager in New York. “The necessary resources for such a response are becoming increasingly scarce.”
MSF said it had treated almost 200,000 patients in Haiti at a cost of $60 million since 2010.
We can rest assured that the UN's MINUSTAH mercenaries are getting their pay like clockwork, keeping the donor nations happy. And it makes sense that cholera is now a "development issue"—that will ensure whacking big sums for the UN and NGO executives, including first-class round-trip airfare to Port-au-Prince and stays in excellent new hotels.
Meanwhile, Haiti's rulers will get their slice, enabling them to send their kids to good schools in the US and Canada, not to mention buying big homes in safe neighbourhoods near Miami or Montreal. After all, you never know when some Cité Soleil gangster will turn himself into a 21st-century Toussaint L'Ouverture and throw the foreigners (and their stooges) out again.
From the point of view of the UN and the NGOs, Nepali cholera has been a blessing in disguise: At the cost of 650,000 cases and 8,000 dead Haitians, cholera has turned shit into gold—at least for the UN and the NGOs.
