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PAHO issues $3.5 million donor appeal for humanitarian health response in the Bahamas

A news release from PAHO: PAHO issues $3.5 million donor appeal for humanitarian health response in the Bahamas. Once again, the first response to a public health disaster is to beg for money:

Nassau, Bahamas, Sept. 8, 2019 (PAHO)—The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is requesting an initial US $3.5 million from donors to cover short-term health care and other needs for the population in the Bahamas affected by Hurricane Dorian.

The devastating category 5 storm made landfall exactly one week ago in northwest Bahamas, and severely affected the health sector, with significant destruction of equipment and medical supplies and electrical and water supplies in Abaco and Grand Bahama. Some 73,000 persons were affected by the storm, and there are hundreds of people in shelters in the disaster zone. While 43 deaths have been officially reported thus far, mass casualty numbers are expected to rise significantly as more areas become accessible and search and rescue operations continue.   

Dr. Ciro Ugarte, PAHO’s Director of Health Emergencies, said, “Our priority concerns are to restore access to essential health services and continued medical care delivery, to ensure water quality in affected communities and health facilities, and to restore proper hygiene and sanitation.” He said adequate waste management and control of disease-causing vectors such as mosquitoes is key, along with increasing epidemiological surveillance to support early detection and timely management of disease outbreaks. 

The $3.5 million being requested by PAHO is a preliminary estimate to cover short- term healthcare, water and sanitation, epidemiological surveillance and vector-control needs in the Bahamian Islands most affected by Hurricane Dorian for the next six months, Dr. Ugarte said, adding that needs will likely increase as damage assessments are completed. 

PAHO/WHO activated its emergency teams for surge capacity and had pre-deployed Rapid Response Team experts to the Bahamas before Hurricane Dorian struck to support health authorities and humanitarian response as needs were identified. So far, 14 PAHO experts are in the disaster zone to provide surge capacity in logistics, civil and military coordination, information management, epidemiological surveillance, communications, and coordination.

Dr. Ugarte said PAHO is acting quickly to support the Bahamas Ministry of Health in the response, setting up an Incident Management system and co-leading the health cluster with the national health authorities to coordinate health and humanitarian support to the affected population.

The funding requests includes $1.3 million to restore healthcare delivery in affected areas, $500,000 for surveillance to detect and manage disease outbreaks, $800,000 for safe access to water, emergency sanitation and control of disease vectors, and well as $671,000 to coordinate humanitarian assistance and manage information to address the most urgent humanitarian needs.

Hurricane Dorian: Storm death toll climbs to seven

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Via The Nassau Guardian: Storm death toll climbs to seven. Excerpt:

Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis said last night that seven people are now confirmed dead as a result of the passage of Hurricane Dorian and more deaths are likely to be discovered in the coming days. 

Minnis, who spoke during a press conference at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) headquarters, said parts of Abaco are completely decimated because of Dorian, which struck that island as a Category 5 storm with winds of 185 miles per hour. 

“Five deaths are confirmed,” Minnis said. “There may be additional deaths that we can expect. Of the 25 individuals that were transported to New Providence, two have already succumbed. That would take the number of deaths to seven. “We can expect more deaths.” 

Minnis said he is praying for the victims’ families.

Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands later said that, “One of the persons that was injured was a 71-year-old with a head injury who subsequently succumbed.  

“Another had no obvious injury, a 39-year-old, but had profound metabolic challenges and also passed away.” 

The prime minister and a team of government officials, including opposition leader Philip Brave Davis, did a flyby of the Abacos yesterday, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. 

One government minister opined that Abaco looked like “Armageddon” had come. 

“Parts of Abaco are decimated,” Minnis said. “There is severe flooding. There is severe flooding damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. 

“The southern aspect of Abaco has suffered less devastation than the north. The Sandy Point area and progressing north has not suffered as much devastation that was seen in the Marsh Harbour vicinity. The international airport on Abaco is under water. The runway is currently flooded. In fact, the area around the airport now looks like a lake.  

“Marsh Harbour has suffered in excess of 60 percent of damage to the homes. The Mudd as we know it has been completely destroyed or decimated.” 

The Mudd is a Haitian shantytown on the island.

PAHO: Bahamas health officials respond to Hurricane Dorian

PAHO has published Bahamas Health Officials Respond to Hurricane Dorian with PAHO’s support. Excerpt:

Nassau, Bahamas, Sept. 3, 2019— A Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) team is working closely with health authorities in the Bahamas to support their response to Hurricane Dorian, which has damaged health facilities and flooded hospitals on Abaco islands and Grand Bahama island. 

 Prior to the hurricane, the PAHO/WHO country office contributed to the Ministry of Health’s preparedness and response planning. PAHO also pre-positioned experts from its sub-regional office in Barbados to assist the country in on-site assessments of Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and health infrastructure and facilities needs. 

Additional support on logistics, civil and military coordination, information management, surveillance, and coordination are expected to arrive in the next 24 hours to work with counterparts in the country.  

A Rapid Assessment is crucial to assist the health ministry in the implementation of urgent life-saving interventions, said Dr. Ciro Ugarte, director of PAHO’s Health Emergencies Department. 

Hurricane Dorian struck the Abaco islands most severely, and significant damage to health infrastructure is likely, although communications are currently cut, and the island cannot be reached. 

Some 400 persons sought shelter at the clinic in Marsh Harbour on Abaco, and initial reports of deaths and injuries have not yet been confirmed. In Grand Bahama, Dorian stalled over the island with intense rainfall, 165 mph winds and 15-20 feet of storm surges. Reports indicate people are stranded in flooded buildings. 

The Ministry of Health (MoH) informed that at least 20 critical patients were evacuated from Abaco to the Princess Margaret Hospital by the Royal Bahamas Defense Forces. 

Health personnel from New Providence and other unaffected Family Islands are on stand-by to be deployed to Abaco and Grand Bahamas to replace exhausted health care professionals. The MoH is determining what additional medical teams need to be deployed to the affected islands and will decide on deployments according to the needs on the affected islands. 

On Grand Bahama Island, Rand Memorial Hospital has 70 nurses, 3 emergency physicians and senior health officers on standby for medical needs on other islands, and the Ministry of Health is setting up a rotating system for physicians and nurses to provide support to Marsh Harbour Clinic, once Abaco is deemed safe.   

Extensive flooding in both affected islands, damage to the Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport, Grand Bahama, displacement of persons as a result of property damage or loss and psychological trauma of the population could bring additional public health challenges.

Hurricane Dorian: ‘Complete devastation’

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Via The Nassau Guardian: ‘Complete devastation’.

Marsh Harbour is an image of “complete devastation”, said one resident who had to flee her home as it was being ripped apart by the strongest hurricane ever to hit the island nation. 

Hurricane Dorian left catastrophic damage in its wake as it crept across Abaco.  

Cindy Russell, a resident of Marsh Harbour, said she had no words to describe the ruin that Dorian inflicted on the community that she no longer recognizes.  

“It’s like we just need to be rescued and put on another island to start over again,” she said. “Complete devastation.”  

Russell and her family are currently residing in a government clinic, where she said hundreds of others have also sought shelter. 

“People are still coming,” she said yesterday. “A lot of people from Murphy Town just got out of that settlement and came to the clinic.” Russell said she made the dangerous trek to the clinic after her windows and floor started vibrating. 

She said the only thing she can still do in her house is cook. “We just came from by our house, you know, you can’t live there. We go and we cook and get clothes, and [come back].”  

Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis announced yesterday evening that there were five confirmed deaths on Abaco as a result of the storm. 

Fear and anxiety enveloped the nation as Dorian continued its trek over Grand Bahama yesterday. Across social media, people posted photos of their friends and relatives in the Abacos who had not been heard from since before the storm. 

In a Facebook group named “Abaco People Search — Hurricane Dorian”, hundreds of names were posted, but many remained unaccounted for.  

When residents began to venture out to view the aftermath, many found utter ruin. On Elbow Cay, a before and after photo of the Hope Town Harbour Lodge revealed unthinkable destruction.  

Typically picturesque old Bahamian-styled homes, suffered extensive damage to the roofs and structures. Electrical wires and fallen utility poles lined, and in some areas obstructed, the streets.  

In the harbor, docks were destroyed and boats overturned. In a video that circulated on social media, buildings on mainland Abaco were flattened. 

Personal belongings and furniture lay in heaps, mixed in with other debris. Fallen trees and power lines were scattered across the area, and boats lay in the streets, washed ashore in the storm surge.  

One man said, “This was Bayview. Bayview gone.”

Bahamas: Hurricane Dorian - Flash Update No. 1 (as of 02 September 2019)

Via ReliefWeb, OCHA has published Bahamas: Hurricane Dorian - Flash Update No. 1 (as of 02 September 2019). Click or tap through to download the full report as a PDF. The main points:

• Hurricane Dorian made landfall over northwest Bahamas on 1 September as the strongest hurricane in Bahamas’ history.  

• Dorian is currently moving westward over Grand Bahama at approximately 1 mph, practically stalling over the island and delaying the deployment of assessment teams on standby in Nassau. 

• The Prime Minister of the Bahamas has reported that five individuals have been confirmed killed as a result of Hurricane Dorian.

• Pre-impact projections based on available data suggest urgent needs in water, food, shelter and early recovery. However, many of these projections are subject to post-impact verification once the Government issues an all-clear.

Human health on an ailing planet: Historical perspectives on our future

Via NEJM: Human Health on an Ailing Planet — Historical Perspectives on Our Future. Excerpt from a must-read article:

What can we do when the patient needing emergency care is the earth? What life support can physicians offer our ailing planet? History can help us understand and answer these pressing questions.  

A deluge of recent reports document the degradation of Earth’s ecosystems. Local and national governments have declared climate emergencies, and it is ever harder to deny that global warming will have a dire impact on human well-being. This recognition has prompted calls to arms by medical doctors and public health experts. Andy Haines and Kristie Ebi demand that we heed “an imperative for climate action.”

“Frightened by the unfolding climate crisis,” Caren Solomon and Regina LaRocque call on Journal readers “to focus our efforts on areas where our voices are most powerful”: to foster climate action in medical schools, support divestment from the fossil-fuel industry, and advocate for fundamental changes in how we relate to our fragile environments. 

David Hunter, Howard Frumkin, and Ashish Jha envision a “preventive medicine for the planet and its peoples,” in which the health professions “use standard tools of health communication to explain the risks of climate change and the benefits of mitigation and adaptation.” 

Samuel Myers, director of the Planetary Health Alliance, seeks a “paradigm shift” in medicine and public health, requiring changes in how “we train, reward, promote, and fund the generation of health scientists who will be tasked with breaking out of their disciplinary silos to address this urgent constellation of health threats.” 

Under the new rubric of “planetary health,” physicians argue strenuously that the health of the human population depends on the health of our planet’s life-support systems. Has it therefore become the responsibility of everyone dedicated to preserving and restoring human health to care for the ailing earth? 

Advocates insist that the degradation of the planet’s ecosystems and global environmental changes demand an expansion of medical ethics and practice beyond their conventional focus on the relationships among patients, doctors, and societies. 

Some propose a whole-earth ethic for public health, one that attends to our relationship with the planet we inhabit, as well as an intergenerational ethic focused on caring for future humans who will otherwise inherit the wreckage we have left.

Hurricane Dorian: Slammed

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Via The Nassau Guardian: SLAMMED. Excerpt:

Hurricane Dorian made a dramatic and terrifying landfall in the Abacos early yesterday with devastating impacts, before taking aim at nearby Grand Bahama. 

As the Category 5 storm — the strongest on record to hit the northern Bahamas — pummeled the mainland and surrounding cays, videos of the destruction quickly circulated, showing residents running for their lives and pleading for prayers. 

Drone footage revealed a great portion of South and Central Abaco under water and wide-scale damage to structures.  

As the storm rolled in, officials said a surge of up to 23 feet was expected. Dorian struck Abaco with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (mph) and gusts over 200 mph. Some areas were left flattened, including docks, houses, resorts and other businesses. 

“This is a deadly storm and a monster storm,” Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis observed.  

Images depicted the flooded Mudd shantytown. Others showed residents moving hurriedly across an open lawn toward the government administration building in Marsh Harbour. 

A Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) officer shouted at them to drop their belongings and run. 

In one video, scores of residents were crammed into a home in Marsh Harbour as houses around them were flattened. The roof of the home they went to for shelter was compromised even before the back of the storm roared in.  

“Marsh Harbour is finished; there is no more Marsh Harbour,” one resident declared.  

Another resident claimed in a voice note circulated via social media, “My mother’s house is completely gone and my grandmother’s house. Marsh Harbour is gone, the Home Fabrics building has water up to the second story. There are countless homes destroyed, the whole town has been flattened. Green Turtle Cay has apparently been flattened, Man-O-War Cay has gotten it pretty rough but everybody seems to be accounted for. There is no such thing as the Mudd and Peas anymore, everything is gone.”  

One woman, who had to be rescued with her four-month-old son, was among those who sought refuge there. Earlier, she cried out for prayers as the water level rose and Dorian destroyed her home.  

The slow-moving storm spent the entire day unleashing its fury over Abaco. A Treasure Cay homeowner based in New Providence said without a doubt her family’s home was gone.   

“We don’t care about the home,” she said. “We care about the lives of our people.” 

Just after noon, Minnis, who cried after addressing the nation, said yesterday was the saddest and the worst day of his life and prayed it was not the last time that residents in the Abacos and Grand Bahama would be hearing from him. 

Although Minnis had repeatedly appealed to residents of the Abaco cays to evacuate, many stayed. In Guana Cay, only eight people boarded a free ferry that came to collect evacuees on Saturday morning, The Nassau Guardian understands. 

One resident said many people did not evacuate because they had nowhere to go in Marsh Harbour. He said he was confident his “well-built home” would withstand the hurricane. 

Residents who were transported from Grand Cay to Grand Bahama early yesterday said more than 100 opted to remain. With the storm still pounding Abaco into the night, it was impossible to get a full assessment of its destruction, but in Nassau, Princess Margaret Hospital prepared to receive casualties. The hospital made an urgent appeal for blood of all types yesterday evening. 

The Ministry of Health said there were no reports of deaths. 

While some Abaco residents were able to capture and share videos of the nightmare unfolding around them, cellular service went down for many around midday.  Some people who were still able to, sent videos begging for help.  

News teams that were stationed at the Abaco Beach Resort had to be evacuated in the middle of the storm. A cameraman pleaded for help as their hotel room began to flood. 

Vehicles flipped over in the strong winds, and others seemed to be on the verge of washing away in the storm surge.  

When residents ventured out of their homes to assess damage in the calm of the eye of the storm, they found unbelievable ruin. Homes that had been standing and filled with life only the day before, were completely flattened.

Hurricane Dorian: First death reported

Via The Guardian: Hurricane Dorian: as many as 13,000 houses severely damaged or destroyed in Bahamas – live updates. Excerpt:

• The first victim of Hurricane Dorian has been named as seven-year-old Lachino McIntosh. His grandmother said he was killed in the Abaco islands. His sister is missing. 

• Hubert Minnis, the prime minister of Bahamas, says the devastation in Abaco is “unprecedented” amid unconfirmed reports of bodies being seen. In a tweet Minnis said: “Our focus right now is rescue, recovery and prayer.” Earlier he said: “This is probably the most sad and worst day of my life to address the Bahamian people. I just want to say as a physician I’ve been trained to withstand many things, but never anything like this.” 

• Bahamas Power and Light says there has been a total blackout in New Providence, the archipelago’s most populous island. Insurers estimate the hurricane could cause insurance industry losses of $25bn up from initial estimates of $15bn. 

• The Red Cross estimates that 13,000 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged on the Bahamas. “Hurricane Dorian has had a catastrophic impact,” its head Sune Bulow said. 

• Dorian is the biggest storm to hit the island chain in modern times and has been described as “catastrophic” and posing a “life-threatening” risk. Meteorologists are finding it difficult to predict the path of the hurricane because of its wide “cone of uncertainty”. Georgia and South Carolina issued evacuation orders for their coastal communities on Sunday night as the National Hurricane Center warned of storm surges that could reach 18ft to 23ft (5.5m-7m) above normal levels. 

• Donald Trump has sown confusion about Hurricane Dorian, repeatedly wrongly claiming that Alabama was set to be hit by the storm and that he had “never even heard of a category 5 storm”, despite having said the same thing at least four times previously. Earlier on Sunday, Trump tweeted that Alabama would be hit by the storm, “most likely … (much) harder than anticipated”. The claim was quickly refuted by the National Weather Service office in Birmingham Alabama, which tweeted that Alabama would “NOT” see any effects from Dorian.

'Hurricane Dorian has virtually stalled over Grand Bahama'

Via The Tribune: HURRICANE DORIAN UPDATES: ‘Severe flooding in Grand Bahama’. Excerpt:

9.30am UPDATE: NEMA is advising the general public that they are receiving reports of severe flooding in many areas of Grand Bahama. Rescue efforts are currently on standby and every effort will be made when the weather permits. NEMA is encouraging people not to attempt to leave their homes and to move to the highest point your house. Twitter Grand Bahama flooding 

8am UPDATE: It appears Hurricane Dorian has virtually stalled over Grand Bahama, according to the National Hurricane Center.  

In New Providence, there is heavy flooding on Bay Street this morning and power is out island-wide.  

Bahamas Power and Light director of public relations Quincy Parker told ZNS this morning that crews are working to restore power.  

He said the Bahamas Power and Light office in Abaco, which was hit by the Category 5 storm on Sunday, has been flattened.  

"The reports out of Abaco as everyone knows were not good," Parker said.  

With regards to the damage Dorian has inflicted on Abaco and Grand Bahama, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement: “Hurricane Dorian has caused extensive damage across the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama in the Bahamas, according to rapid initial assessments from authorities and Red Cross officials on the ground.  

“According to these reports, Dorian’s ferocious category 5 winds and rains have damaged houses and other buildings, leaving many people without adequate shelter. As many as 13,000 houses may have been severely damaged or destroyed. On the island of Abaco, extensive flooding is believed to have contaminated wells with saltwater, creating an urgent need for clean water.”

Hurricane Dorian: Govt. offices in NP closed tomorrow, reopen Tuesday

Via Eyewitness News: Govt. offices in NP closed tomorrow, reopen Tuesday.

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The Cabinet Office announced in a statement this evening that government offices in New Providence will be closed tomorrow and reopen on Tuesday.  

Government offices on Abaco, Grand Bahama, Andros, Eleuthera, Bimini and the Berry Islands will be closed until further notice.  

All government offices in the southern islands will open tomorrow. 

 The Cabinet Office said public health clinics throughout New Providence and the southern islands will also open tomorrow.

The public health clinics in the northern islands will likely see more demand for their services. So far, no deaths have been reported. But very little can be reported at this stage of a climate disaster.