Hi there, I read other discussion on this already and sounds like there will not be a mission specific medal given to the soldiers deployed in Haiti in 2004. I don't need a discussion on this, i would just appreciate it if there is someone out there who can justify it. Right now I'm trying to do it and i can't; Right now they are saying you could 've gone to Bosnia as a canteen queen get re pat on the 31st day there for whatever reason and get a medal but you go to Haiti on a moments notice told the mission will be anywhere between 14 to 180 days(and that's o.k that's my job) conduct day and night "cordon and search" couldn't use the R word... there is believe it or not stress involved when searching someones home for weapons, and I'll stop there cause i definitely don't think that our work there need to be justified in any ways it was a chapter VII mission enough said. Some will say another guy crying for a medal, yes absolutely, for me going over seas on operation is not about the money (although it helps) its about pride, pride for myself every times i get to wear my uniform, but more for my family its (medal) the only thing that we have left to show for the sacrifice we do for our country, yet it turns around and seems to say we are sorry we know you received the CPSM 5 x over but that's the only thing coming. COME ON. Soldiers like medals if they say they don't care for medals the chances are they are lying, If its becoming hard to afford decorating a soldier for the commitment and sacrifice he or she and the families are making, then perhaps its time to stop deploying them. Still hoping that the CO will not forget this issue and those who worked for him. serious replies please.
CAN Mission in Haiti (ops, medals, etc) - merged
- Thread starter 2chicken
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medicineman
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Even those of us there for the whole tour were inelligible for the MINUSTAH medal because the last of us left 14 days short of the minimum time in country required from when the mandate was put in place. The people that went over for the front end only (India Coy Group) got perhaps their CPSM if they didn't already have it - likewise with Hotel Coy and anyone in the NSE/NCE where this was their cherry tour.
MM
MM
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I have a question that can't seem to be answered without writiing a letter to DH&R.
I was presented a CPSM for Operation Forward Action off the coast of Haiti in 1994. I read on the website that this Operation does not now fall under the guidelines of a Peace Keeping mission and has been dropped from the eligibility list.
I also now see that there is a UN Medal for Haiti and the eligibility criteria is: Awarded for 90 days consecutive service between 1 June 2004 to the present.
Now it doesn't specify if this is land based only or if the ships involved are also qualifiers. Does anyone here have any input on this? I have been retired for 3 years now and would like to make sure I have the proper medal. Do I send my CPSM back to "trade in" for the UN medal or do I have an option here?
Thanks :cdnsalute:
I was presented a CPSM for Operation Forward Action off the coast of Haiti in 1994. I read on the website that this Operation does not now fall under the guidelines of a Peace Keeping mission and has been dropped from the eligibility list.
I also now see that there is a UN Medal for Haiti and the eligibility criteria is: Awarded for 90 days consecutive service between 1 June 2004 to the present.
Now it doesn't specify if this is land based only or if the ships involved are also qualifiers. Does anyone here have any input on this? I have been retired for 3 years now and would like to make sure I have the proper medal. Do I send my CPSM back to "trade in" for the UN medal or do I have an option here?
Thanks :cdnsalute:
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Were you on Operation MINUSTAH?
http://www.dnd.ca/hr/cfpn/engraph/1_06/1_06_admhrmil_minustah-medal_e.asp
http://www.dnd.ca/hr/cfpn/engraph/1_06/1_06_admhrmil_minustah-medal_e.asp
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We were part of the embargo against Haiti in the summer of 94. I don't know if it was part of MINUSTAH or not, it was called Op FWD Action.
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This:
doesn't meet the criteria here:
NavyGunnerRTD said:
doesn't meet the criteria here:
Monsoon
Sr. Member
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I checked the CPSM eligible missions list and found:
...which is the mission FORWARD ACTION was in support of. It being a deployment through NATO, you should also have gotten the SSM with NATO bar in lieu of the UNMIH medal.
- UNMIH [UN Mission in Haiti] (29 September 1993 - 30 June 1996)
...which is the mission FORWARD ACTION was in support of. It being a deployment through NATO, you should also have gotten the SSM with NATO bar in lieu of the UNMIH medal.
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OK. It was driving me nuts so I have corrected the spelling in the title from "UM MEdal for Haiti" to "UN Medal......"
medicineman
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MINUSTAH was a spinoff of the MIF mission that started in Mar 04 and continues to this day. It was originally a NEO Op that turned into something completely different (I think the final count of extensions was 4), with the UN assuming control from MIF in Jun 04. It was an Army op with an Air Force contingent for our air bridge - no ships. I'd look into the medal that was awarded to the UN forces that were in place in the early/mid 90's - a different op and therefore a different mission and medal.
Cheers.
PS - Those of us on the original Op Halo (MIF/MINUSTAH) only got the CPSM (if you didn't already have one) and those of us that were there to the end were 14 days short of the MINUSTAH medal. I think I got a certificate and a nice tan...
.
MM
Cheers.
PS - Those of us on the original Op Halo (MIF/MINUSTAH) only got the CPSM (if you didn't already have one) and those of us that were there to the end were 14 days short of the MINUSTAH medal. I think I got a certificate and a nice tan...
.MM
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To add to the SSM Eligibility List:hamiltongs said:
- HMCS ANNAPOLIS 27-Mar-94 20-Apr-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 50
- HMCS FRASER 17-Oct-93 17-Dec-93 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 124 Days
- HMCS FRASER 12-Jan-94 27-Mar-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 150 Days
- HMCS GATINEAU 17-Oct-93 17-Nov-93 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 64 Days
- HMCS KOOTENAY 13-Jul-94 12-Sep-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SM PEACE BAR) 124 Days
- HMCS PRESERVER 17-Oct-93 17-Nov-93 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 64 Days
- HMCS PROVIDER 17-Dec-93 12-Jan-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 54 Days
- HMCS TERRA NOVA 07-Sep-94 17-Oct-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 82 Days
- HMCS TERRA NOVA 28-Apr-94 13-Jul-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 154 Days
- HMCS VILLE DE QUEBEC 20-Apr-94 28-Apr-94 OP FORWARD ACTION (SSM PEACE BAR) 18 Days
And also
UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) Medal said:
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Yrys said:
LOL ok thanks
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I have a question and its based on a peers procrastinating nature in applying for a medal.
Prior to the CPSM crit being amended. OP SHARP GUARD had met the criteria and we had a big medals parade back in 2000.
My friend had been posted off and did not receive his medal, even though he was on tour with us. He went to apply this year on my insistence only to be found that SHARP GUARD, no longer met the amended criteria.
Is he SOL? or am I missing something in giving him this advice.
Crow
Prior to the CPSM crit being amended. OP SHARP GUARD had met the criteria and we had a big medals parade back in 2000.
My friend had been posted off and did not receive his medal, even though he was on tour with us. He went to apply this year on my insistence only to be found that SHARP GUARD, no longer met the amended criteria.
Is he SOL? or am I missing something in giving him this advice.
Crow
- Reaction score
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Field hospital gets its orders
By SEAN CHASE
Pembroke Daily Observer
http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2268818
Petawawa's involvement in Canada's rescue mission to earthquake stricken Haiti escalated Tuesday as the 1st Canadian Field Hospital received orders to deploy to the devastated island nation.
The unit will be sending some 100 surgeons, nurses and medics, with the first group leaving as soon as this weekend, to join Operation HESTIA, the Canadian rescue and humanitarian assistance mission in Haiti.
The base is already dispatching 88 soldiers with the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) as the security situation in Haiti deteriorates one week after the 7.0 magnitude quake, which has likely killed tens of thousands.
"The nations of the world are descending on Haiti and are trying to bring order out of that chaos," Lt.-Col. Dyrald Cross, 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group chief of staff, told a briefing for families and soldiers at the base following the announcement of the impending deployment.
Most of the 200-member DART company, which is commanded by Maj. Paul Payne, of the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (2RCHA), is already on the ground providing security to the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince and a Belgian field hospital, while continuing to assist in search and rescue efforts and delivering food, water and supplies.
The Canadian mission will focus on Jacmel, a town of 80,000 about 25 kilometres south west of the capital.
The community has an airstrip where a Canadian Hercules has already landed successfully.
"That will be the centre of our Canadian area of operations," said Lt.-Col. Cross. "Canada is responsible for a chunk of ground and will have the responsibility to aid the people in that chunk of ground."
Once personnel and resources are on the island, the 1st Canadian Field Hospital will be equipped with a hospital complete with intensive care unit and 40 to 50 beds.
It will be manned by two surgical teams each complete with a general surgeon and orthopedic surgeon, operating room nurses and technicians.
Maj. Patrick Brizay, who will be commanding the field hospital in Haiti, said the unit will be ready for all possible medical contingencies.
The unit currently has most of its regular members deployed so it required considerable augmentation from bases across Canada.
In the last few days, those augmentees have been arriving in Petawawa.
"When we got the call to ramp up the mission, the people wanted to contribute and the units stepped up," said Maj. Brizay. "It's pretty amazing."
The hospital will be centrally located with teams of medics being sent to communities within the Canadian area of responsibility.
Military surgeons expect to provide care and relief for severe medical cases such as patients suffering orthopedic injuries from collapsed buildings or other injuries that may require amputations.
They anticipate patients will also suffer from chronic illnesses, infections and dehydration. Lt.-Col. Chris Berger, a military anesthesiologist, said it will be unlike the situation Canadian medics have faced in Afghanistan.
"We' re looking at a less intensive situation but with equally debilitating injuries and a higher volume of patients," said Lt.-Col. Berger.
Lt.-Col. Cross later provided some insight into the chain of events which led to Petawawa's rapid deployment of the DART. While in Fort Irwin, California, where 2,000 local troops are training for Afghanistan, the commanding officer received a warning order last Tuesday around 10:30 p.m. to prepare the DART.
The first member of the DART was on a flight bound for Haiti by 6 a.m. the next morning.
DART personnel from Petawawa include medics from 2 Field Ambulance and the field hospital, force protection soldiers from the 1st and 3rd Battalions, Royal Canadian Regiment and the Royal Canadian Dragoons, and a headquarters from 2RCHA.
The brigade is involved in all four major Canadian Forces operations at the moment. While local soldiers are in California and on the Haiti mission, there is a reconnaissance squadron currently in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In addition, they are preparing to send troops to provide security at the Vancouver Olympics and the G-8/G-20 Summit.
"It's a significant undertaking," Lt.-Col. Cross added. "I don't think any other base can say that."
Petawawa troops could be in Haiti for up to 60 days, however, Lt.-Col. Cross remarked the length of the deployment will be decided by the federal government.
Mobile hospital ready to deploy to Haiti
By SEAN CHASE, QMI Agency
22 January 2010
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/haiti/2010/01/22/12576511.html
CFB PETAWAWA, Ont. - The 1st Canadian Field Hospital is awaiting the final word before deploying to Haiti, to assist with medical relief efforts still desperately needed in the quake-ravaged country.
After Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced Thursday the medical unit will be made available to set up operations in Leogane, a costal community 29 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, where 90% of the buildings were destroyed, the unit was put on four-hour standby at the base.
On Friday, the field hospital's 112 doctors, nurses, specialists and medics were packing the last of their supplies, preparing to ship out as early as that evening.
The unit already has a two-man advance team in Leogane conducting a reconnaissance of the area.
"We're desperately needed there," said Deputy Commanding Officer Maj. Patrick Brizay, who will be leading the field hospital in Haiti.
The deployed hospital will include an operating room with two surgical teams, two resuscitation beds, two critical-care beds and 100 immediate and minimum-care beds. It will be powered by its own generators, and will have laboratory and diagnostic-imaging capabilities.
The unit will also come with two ambulances.
"Once we're on the ground, we're configured to receive casualties and treat people right away," said Maj. Brizay, adding it will take one day to completely set up the facility, partially constructed out of tents and metal sea containers. "We can do anything a regular hospital can do, except we're under a tent."
The population in Leogane and the surrounding region prior to the Jan. 12 quake was about 200,000. However, relief organizations and the United Nations have estimated the death toll just in this area could be between 20,000 and 30,000. Food and supplies have taken longer to reach Leogane because the main roads were wiped out, a factor Maj. Brizay added may delay their move into the city.
"They don't have anything standing," he explained. "Even if they have the doctors or nurses the hospitals are flattened."
This is the first time the field hospital has deployed as a unit since the 1991 Gulf War. For many of its members, this will be their first disaster assistance operation.
"We're kind of anxious," said Cpl. Stephanie Shaw, a medical technician who has been to Afghanistan twice. "We're trying to think ahead, plan and make sure we have everything."
Surgeons expect to deal with severe medical cases, such as patients with severely broke bones, crushed by collapsed buildings. Many of those injuries, festering since the quake, now require amputations.
"People are suffering so we're looking forward to doing our part to help," said Sgt. Simon Charlebois, a veteran of Bosnia and Afghanistan.
As a lab technician, Sgt. Charlebois will be assisting the physicians in diagnosing ailments and selecting the appropriate treatments. He'll also prepare blood transfusions and monitor patients for side effects.
Able Seaman Greg Cornect, a medical technician, said he was excited about heading out on his first deployment anywhere. While his job will be to assist the nurses in the Intensive Care ward, the sailor said he hopes to help as many of the Haitian people as he can.
"They're devastated by this earthquake," said Able Seaman Cornect. "They're going through the trial of a lifetime."
The base has already sent 88 soldiers with the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) as part of Operation HESTIA, the Canadian humanitarian response in Haiti. A total of 2,000 Canadian Forces personnel have been committed to the rescue mission.
Petawawa troops could be in Haiti for up to 60 days, however the federal government will make the final decision as to the length of their stay.
A-Channel Report on Youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyYWSZnU9LA
By SEAN CHASE
Pembroke Daily Observer
http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2268818
Petawawa's involvement in Canada's rescue mission to earthquake stricken Haiti escalated Tuesday as the 1st Canadian Field Hospital received orders to deploy to the devastated island nation.
The unit will be sending some 100 surgeons, nurses and medics, with the first group leaving as soon as this weekend, to join Operation HESTIA, the Canadian rescue and humanitarian assistance mission in Haiti.
The base is already dispatching 88 soldiers with the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) as the security situation in Haiti deteriorates one week after the 7.0 magnitude quake, which has likely killed tens of thousands.
"The nations of the world are descending on Haiti and are trying to bring order out of that chaos," Lt.-Col. Dyrald Cross, 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group chief of staff, told a briefing for families and soldiers at the base following the announcement of the impending deployment.
Most of the 200-member DART company, which is commanded by Maj. Paul Payne, of the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (2RCHA), is already on the ground providing security to the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince and a Belgian field hospital, while continuing to assist in search and rescue efforts and delivering food, water and supplies.
The Canadian mission will focus on Jacmel, a town of 80,000 about 25 kilometres south west of the capital.
The community has an airstrip where a Canadian Hercules has already landed successfully.
"That will be the centre of our Canadian area of operations," said Lt.-Col. Cross. "Canada is responsible for a chunk of ground and will have the responsibility to aid the people in that chunk of ground."
Once personnel and resources are on the island, the 1st Canadian Field Hospital will be equipped with a hospital complete with intensive care unit and 40 to 50 beds.
It will be manned by two surgical teams each complete with a general surgeon and orthopedic surgeon, operating room nurses and technicians.
Maj. Patrick Brizay, who will be commanding the field hospital in Haiti, said the unit will be ready for all possible medical contingencies.
The unit currently has most of its regular members deployed so it required considerable augmentation from bases across Canada.
In the last few days, those augmentees have been arriving in Petawawa.
"When we got the call to ramp up the mission, the people wanted to contribute and the units stepped up," said Maj. Brizay. "It's pretty amazing."
The hospital will be centrally located with teams of medics being sent to communities within the Canadian area of responsibility.
Military surgeons expect to provide care and relief for severe medical cases such as patients suffering orthopedic injuries from collapsed buildings or other injuries that may require amputations.
They anticipate patients will also suffer from chronic illnesses, infections and dehydration. Lt.-Col. Chris Berger, a military anesthesiologist, said it will be unlike the situation Canadian medics have faced in Afghanistan.
"We' re looking at a less intensive situation but with equally debilitating injuries and a higher volume of patients," said Lt.-Col. Berger.
Lt.-Col. Cross later provided some insight into the chain of events which led to Petawawa's rapid deployment of the DART. While in Fort Irwin, California, where 2,000 local troops are training for Afghanistan, the commanding officer received a warning order last Tuesday around 10:30 p.m. to prepare the DART.
The first member of the DART was on a flight bound for Haiti by 6 a.m. the next morning.
DART personnel from Petawawa include medics from 2 Field Ambulance and the field hospital, force protection soldiers from the 1st and 3rd Battalions, Royal Canadian Regiment and the Royal Canadian Dragoons, and a headquarters from 2RCHA.
The brigade is involved in all four major Canadian Forces operations at the moment. While local soldiers are in California and on the Haiti mission, there is a reconnaissance squadron currently in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
In addition, they are preparing to send troops to provide security at the Vancouver Olympics and the G-8/G-20 Summit.
"It's a significant undertaking," Lt.-Col. Cross added. "I don't think any other base can say that."
Petawawa troops could be in Haiti for up to 60 days, however, Lt.-Col. Cross remarked the length of the deployment will be decided by the federal government.
Mobile hospital ready to deploy to Haiti
By SEAN CHASE, QMI Agency
22 January 2010
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/haiti/2010/01/22/12576511.html
CFB PETAWAWA, Ont. - The 1st Canadian Field Hospital is awaiting the final word before deploying to Haiti, to assist with medical relief efforts still desperately needed in the quake-ravaged country.
After Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced Thursday the medical unit will be made available to set up operations in Leogane, a costal community 29 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, where 90% of the buildings were destroyed, the unit was put on four-hour standby at the base.
On Friday, the field hospital's 112 doctors, nurses, specialists and medics were packing the last of their supplies, preparing to ship out as early as that evening.
The unit already has a two-man advance team in Leogane conducting a reconnaissance of the area.
"We're desperately needed there," said Deputy Commanding Officer Maj. Patrick Brizay, who will be leading the field hospital in Haiti.
The deployed hospital will include an operating room with two surgical teams, two resuscitation beds, two critical-care beds and 100 immediate and minimum-care beds. It will be powered by its own generators, and will have laboratory and diagnostic-imaging capabilities.
The unit will also come with two ambulances.
"Once we're on the ground, we're configured to receive casualties and treat people right away," said Maj. Brizay, adding it will take one day to completely set up the facility, partially constructed out of tents and metal sea containers. "We can do anything a regular hospital can do, except we're under a tent."
The population in Leogane and the surrounding region prior to the Jan. 12 quake was about 200,000. However, relief organizations and the United Nations have estimated the death toll just in this area could be between 20,000 and 30,000. Food and supplies have taken longer to reach Leogane because the main roads were wiped out, a factor Maj. Brizay added may delay their move into the city.
"They don't have anything standing," he explained. "Even if they have the doctors or nurses the hospitals are flattened."
This is the first time the field hospital has deployed as a unit since the 1991 Gulf War. For many of its members, this will be their first disaster assistance operation.
"We're kind of anxious," said Cpl. Stephanie Shaw, a medical technician who has been to Afghanistan twice. "We're trying to think ahead, plan and make sure we have everything."
Surgeons expect to deal with severe medical cases, such as patients with severely broke bones, crushed by collapsed buildings. Many of those injuries, festering since the quake, now require amputations.
"People are suffering so we're looking forward to doing our part to help," said Sgt. Simon Charlebois, a veteran of Bosnia and Afghanistan.
As a lab technician, Sgt. Charlebois will be assisting the physicians in diagnosing ailments and selecting the appropriate treatments. He'll also prepare blood transfusions and monitor patients for side effects.
Able Seaman Greg Cornect, a medical technician, said he was excited about heading out on his first deployment anywhere. While his job will be to assist the nurses in the Intensive Care ward, the sailor said he hopes to help as many of the Haitian people as he can.
"They're devastated by this earthquake," said Able Seaman Cornect. "They're going through the trial of a lifetime."
The base has already sent 88 soldiers with the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) as part of Operation HESTIA, the Canadian humanitarian response in Haiti. A total of 2,000 Canadian Forces personnel have been committed to the rescue mission.
Petawawa troops could be in Haiti for up to 60 days, however the federal government will make the final decision as to the length of their stay.
A-Channel Report on Youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyYWSZnU9LA
medicineman
Army.ca Legend
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To all I know, hope they have a good go - one young guy was sent from here in Vic, and I know more than a few of the others on the way.
MM
MM
- Reaction score
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DART produces clean drinking water for Haitians
CTV.ca News Staff
26 Jan 2010
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100126/haiti_aid_100126/20100126?hub=TopStoriesV2
Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team was able to start producing much-needed drinking water in Haiti Tuesday, two weeks after a massive earthquake caused widespread destruction.
The team was forced to filter salt water from the Caribbean Sea because river waters are too polluted, resulting in a process that takes twice as long as normal.
Maj. Earl Maher, an engineer with DART, said a crew has been working 20-hour days to get the water purification system working.
There is some water in Haiti "but it's been tested and it is just not anywhere near a drinking standard," Maher told The Canadian Press.
About 5,000 litres of drinking water were sent to Jacmel, a city outside Port-au-Prince.
However, the problem is now a distribution one, something that has plagued aid in Haiti.
"As long as we can get trucks to come in and take it and deliver it to people they will have fresh water to drink," said Maher.
Haitians are still in dire need of food and shelter, according to the UN’s humanitarian relief co-ordinator.
John Holmes said he’s frustrated that aid has so failed to reach everyone in need.
“We are still struggling to get as much aid out to people on the streets, not only in Port-au-Prince but in the cities around there, as we would like,” Holmes told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.
“We certainly haven’t reached everybody with everything they need, and we’re still quite a long way away from that. That’s frustrating for us, but everybody is doing everything they possibly can, straining every nerve to make it happen.”
While the UN’s World Food Program has been able to distribute some food to survivors, the agency is appealing for tens of millions of ready-to-eat meals until supply routes can be cleared to better dispense rice, vegetables and oil.
And while the Haitian government has appealed for 200,000 tents to house those displaced by the quake, Holmes estimates as many as one million people are now homeless, and that many tents are required before the rainy season begins in the spring.
Holmes said he believes his agency has the right mechanisms in place to distribute aid. But until everyone has enough food, water, shelter, as well as the medical care they require, “of course we can’t be satisfied.”
The global agency supplying tents, the International Organization for Migration, said Tuesday it had 10,000 tents stored in Haiti and at least 30,000 more on the way.
Haitian President Rene Preval has appealed for hundreds of thousands of tents and, in a show of solidarity with the quake’s victims, said he plans to move into a tent on the grounds of his former home, the National Palace, which crumbled during the quake.
UN peacekeeping forces have cleared five hectares north of Port-au-Prince and plan to establish a half-dozen other sites that will serve as tent cities, to be set up before the rainy season begins in April.
Col. Delcio Monteiro Sapper, a Brazilian army engineer serving with the UN force, said the Interamerican Development Bank plans to clear 100 hectares of government-owned land to house upwards of 100,000 people.
Canadians providing medical aid
As the UN makes headway in its relief efforts, Canadian Forces personnel have established a solid foothold in Haiti by offering direct medical assistance to those who need it, just one week after arriving in the devastated nation.
Capt. Art McDonald, Task Group Commander of Operation HESTIA which includes HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax, said the crews have set up hospitals and provided frontline medical assistance in the aftermath of the powerful quake.
"There's much more to be done but we have over 1,400 soldiers, sailors and airmen on the ground here in Haiti and we're working together jointly, working very well to make a difference as one taskforce to save lives and mitigate human suffering," McDonald told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.
The 500 sailors aboard the two ships are working with members of Canada's DART, soldiers and Air Force personnel and medical staff.
The sailors' efforts have focused on Jacmel and Leogane, two cities outside the capital Port-au-Prince which were hard hit by the quake.
"Medical assistance is something that was identified even by the Haitian prime minister as very important in these two areas and from our arrival that has been a focus of Canadian efforts," McDonald said.
He said the crews have made great strides since their arrival about a week ago. At that time the main challenges were logistical, such as where to moor the ships and how equipment and aid would be delivered to the hardest-hit areas.
Now many of those initial challenges have been overcome and the focus is on delivering medical aid.
In Jacmel, the crew of HMCS Halifax has worked with DART to establish two hospitals -- facilities McDonald said have made a major difference to the injured survivors of the quake.
"And now we assess the medical situation to be stable in Jacmel," he said.
In Leogane, sailors from HMCS Athabaskan are working with Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, or Van Doos regiment. Much of their work has been in concert with a non-governmental Canadian medical assistance team.
"They estimate that when our teams are providing security, personnel control, processing, general labour and support we're able to double the capacity of what the doctors bring to the ground."
The teams are also working to bring a Canadian field hospital into operation by Tuesday or Wednesday, which is expected to have surgical capabilities by Thursday, McDonald said.
CTV.ca News Staff
26 Jan 2010
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100126/haiti_aid_100126/20100126?hub=TopStoriesV2
Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team was able to start producing much-needed drinking water in Haiti Tuesday, two weeks after a massive earthquake caused widespread destruction.
The team was forced to filter salt water from the Caribbean Sea because river waters are too polluted, resulting in a process that takes twice as long as normal.
Maj. Earl Maher, an engineer with DART, said a crew has been working 20-hour days to get the water purification system working.
There is some water in Haiti "but it's been tested and it is just not anywhere near a drinking standard," Maher told The Canadian Press.
About 5,000 litres of drinking water were sent to Jacmel, a city outside Port-au-Prince.
However, the problem is now a distribution one, something that has plagued aid in Haiti.
"As long as we can get trucks to come in and take it and deliver it to people they will have fresh water to drink," said Maher.
Haitians are still in dire need of food and shelter, according to the UN’s humanitarian relief co-ordinator.
John Holmes said he’s frustrated that aid has so failed to reach everyone in need.
“We are still struggling to get as much aid out to people on the streets, not only in Port-au-Prince but in the cities around there, as we would like,” Holmes told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.
“We certainly haven’t reached everybody with everything they need, and we’re still quite a long way away from that. That’s frustrating for us, but everybody is doing everything they possibly can, straining every nerve to make it happen.”
While the UN’s World Food Program has been able to distribute some food to survivors, the agency is appealing for tens of millions of ready-to-eat meals until supply routes can be cleared to better dispense rice, vegetables and oil.
And while the Haitian government has appealed for 200,000 tents to house those displaced by the quake, Holmes estimates as many as one million people are now homeless, and that many tents are required before the rainy season begins in the spring.
Holmes said he believes his agency has the right mechanisms in place to distribute aid. But until everyone has enough food, water, shelter, as well as the medical care they require, “of course we can’t be satisfied.”
The global agency supplying tents, the International Organization for Migration, said Tuesday it had 10,000 tents stored in Haiti and at least 30,000 more on the way.
Haitian President Rene Preval has appealed for hundreds of thousands of tents and, in a show of solidarity with the quake’s victims, said he plans to move into a tent on the grounds of his former home, the National Palace, which crumbled during the quake.
UN peacekeeping forces have cleared five hectares north of Port-au-Prince and plan to establish a half-dozen other sites that will serve as tent cities, to be set up before the rainy season begins in April.
Col. Delcio Monteiro Sapper, a Brazilian army engineer serving with the UN force, said the Interamerican Development Bank plans to clear 100 hectares of government-owned land to house upwards of 100,000 people.
Canadians providing medical aid
As the UN makes headway in its relief efforts, Canadian Forces personnel have established a solid foothold in Haiti by offering direct medical assistance to those who need it, just one week after arriving in the devastated nation.
Capt. Art McDonald, Task Group Commander of Operation HESTIA which includes HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax, said the crews have set up hospitals and provided frontline medical assistance in the aftermath of the powerful quake.
"There's much more to be done but we have over 1,400 soldiers, sailors and airmen on the ground here in Haiti and we're working together jointly, working very well to make a difference as one taskforce to save lives and mitigate human suffering," McDonald told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.
The 500 sailors aboard the two ships are working with members of Canada's DART, soldiers and Air Force personnel and medical staff.
The sailors' efforts have focused on Jacmel and Leogane, two cities outside the capital Port-au-Prince which were hard hit by the quake.
"Medical assistance is something that was identified even by the Haitian prime minister as very important in these two areas and from our arrival that has been a focus of Canadian efforts," McDonald said.
He said the crews have made great strides since their arrival about a week ago. At that time the main challenges were logistical, such as where to moor the ships and how equipment and aid would be delivered to the hardest-hit areas.
Now many of those initial challenges have been overcome and the focus is on delivering medical aid.
In Jacmel, the crew of HMCS Halifax has worked with DART to establish two hospitals -- facilities McDonald said have made a major difference to the injured survivors of the quake.
"And now we assess the medical situation to be stable in Jacmel," he said.
In Leogane, sailors from HMCS Athabaskan are working with Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, or Van Doos regiment. Much of their work has been in concert with a non-governmental Canadian medical assistance team.
"They estimate that when our teams are providing security, personnel control, processing, general labour and support we're able to double the capacity of what the doctors bring to the ground."
The teams are also working to bring a Canadian field hospital into operation by Tuesday or Wednesday, which is expected to have surgical capabilities by Thursday, McDonald said.
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 410
For medics in Haiti everything is in short supply — except the wounded
By Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service
January 17, 2010
http://www.canada.com/news/world/medics+everything+short+supply+except+wounded/2450897/story.html
The injured continued to arrive at the gates to the field hospital Saturday in front of the Laboratoire National de Sante Public in Port Au Prince where Canadian Forces medical personnel tried to mend broken bodies with cardboard.
Facing limited supplies and an endless need, Canadian military personnel were forced to reuse latex gloves and resort to cardboard ripped from supply boxes for splints, said Cpl. Alexander Robitaille, a medic with the Canadian Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART).
“We use what we have. We don’t have a lot of supplies. That is why we use cardboard. It works, it is stable,” said Robitaille, after a day mending bodies. “We just try to use less things ... we are waiting for more (supplies).”
Robitaille said he did not know when additional medical material would arrive.
The team was working out of two field hospital tents with their patients laying on stretchers at one end, and the operating room at the other.
A young girl whose foot was amputated was carried out by her father, and a young woman with an amputated arm was helped through the gates by two women late Saturday afternoon. A baby was also delivered Saturday at the Belgian-run field hospital.
Medical staff often have to turn to amputation because wounds are infected beyond healing, some crawling with maggots, said Robitaille.
“Some people have been caught in the rubble for three four days, so they couldn’t move, they couldn’t do anything to clean it,” he said.
The Belgian doctors perform the amputations.
On Friday, the Canadian medical crew treated 42 patients.
But the mended faced a high chance of aggravating their wounds from infection and failure to take their medication, said Robitaille. Those whose legs are put into cardboard splints often don’t have crutches or wheelchairs to allow for the rest needed to mend broken bones, he said. Many also cannot read and could forget the instructions for their medicine.
Across the street a makeshift city has sprung up and those that live there often go to the field hospital for help.
“It is not really clean there and it has all the things for infections and disease,” said Robitaille, who is on his first deployment and landed Wednesday with the DART reconnaissance team.
“It is a drop in the bucket,” said Master Cpl. Richard Robichaud, also with the medical team. “I would rather have a drop in the bucket, than the bucket empty.”
Robichaud said one man gave them “two thumbs up” after they mended his leg the day before.
Outside the gates Saturday, a crowd of Haitians gathered, some pleading to get in. Others just watched.
Dave Coffie, 12, had been waiting for two days to get into the field hospital for treatment for a broken lower leg, said his father Prinston Coffie, 46.
“A block of cement fell on his leg,” said the elder Coffie. “My son is my life, my life is broken.”
Moments after he uttered those words, the gates opened and his son was taken into the field hospital.
Next door, at Hospital de la Paix, it was chaos. Patients lay outdoors, in the hallways, flies landing on their exposed limbs, rags used as bandages soaked with blood. The smell of rotting flesh soiled the air.
Handwritten notes outlining their ailments were taped to the metal frames of some of their beds.
Iva Juan-Batista, 18, couldn’t stop crying as she held her two-year-old son whose nose had been broken when Tuesday’s earthquake destroyed their house.
He was being held by his paternal grandmother when the earth shook. The grandmother died. So did the boy’s father, Ricardo Regulier, 26.
“I am so very sad, I am so sad. I am depressed,” said Juan-Batista. “I have no help.”
She began to weep again, holding her son.
Dr. Mark Edwin Casseus, whose aunt lives in Montreal, said he had been working non-stop since Tuesday when he started at 6 p.m. and treated the wounded until 6 a.m. the next day with nine other doctors.
“It was horrible,” said Casseus. “There was only 10 of us, it was horrible — 400 people, open fractures, crushing trauma.”
He said they lack gauzes, IV bags, antibiotics, an X-ray machine and a functioning operating room.
“We manage to get by, but it’s not adequate,” said Casseus.
Medical teams from Spain, Chile and Cuba, however, were beginning to take charge of the hospital Saturday, first by separating patients by severity and limiting the number of family members allowed inside.
They were also bringing in medical supplies and commencing operations, said Hediberto Perez, with the Chilean medical team.
Order also returned to the front gates of the Canadian embassy where Canadian citizens seeking to flee Haiti had gathered, clamouring to get through the gates.
Canadian soldiers stepped in Friday to organize the lines, easing the processing by embassy staff.
Another load of 40 Canadians were put on an aircraft Saturday morning, bringing the total of evacuated to about 550 people, the military said.
==============================================================
Canada's medical relief team gets to work
By Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service
19 January 2010
Copy at: http://www.theprovince.com/health/Canada+medical+relief+team+gets+work/2458017/story.html
Medics and doctors from Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team landed in Haiti's coastal city of Jacmel Monday and immediately began healing broken bodies.
They treated patients under tarps outside a local hospital, damaged by the earthquake, where local doctors were doing their best to heal the badly wounded despite acute shortages.
"They have no surgery capability right now and that is the major problem," said Maj. Annie Bouchard, DART medical platoon commander. "Their anesthesia machine is broken and they have no supplies."
Bouchard said half of the 64 patients needed surgery to "either save their limb or save their life."
Jacmel, which sits south of Port-au-Prince, is the focus of Canada's efforts in Haiti.
"It's clear there is a need here for potable water and medical and construction equipment," said Col. Bruce Ewing, DART commander. "It's a perfect set up for the DART."
Ewing said that DART plans to set up a medical clinic that will be able to treat 250 people a day and there are plans to also provide care in the surrounding areas through mobile medical units.
"It's terrible for a lot of people, a lot of people lost their homes," said Colette Chandler, a local woman who said she was a cousin of Governor General Michaelle Jean, whose family lived in Jacmel.
Ewing said the area was at the top of the list for Canadian deployment shortly after the first reconnaissance team landed.
"No one else appeared to be thinking about coming," he said.
HMCS Halifax is expected Tuesday to arrive off Jacmel's coast and will provide some 50 sailors.
Ewing said 60 DART members were on the ground Monday, including 25 medics and "four or five" doctors, the rest are security forces.
The team, however, faces major logistical challenges as the roads remain blocked and the port is damaged, meaning the navy will have to come ashore in smaller boats.
The UN is also currently on the ground along with Colombian and Brazilian search-and-rescue teams.
The local Haitian police have since abandoned their posts and local government is non-existent.
A UN force from Sri Lanka is also currently deployed in Jacmel, where an estimated 84,000 people are homeless.
..........
article continued at link above.
==============================================================
Canadian medics bring hope
Aid station a symbol to Haitians
By THANE BURNETT, QMI Agency
26 Jan 2010
link : http://www.torontosun.com/news/haiti/2010/01/26/12615966.html
As world powers met in Montreal on Monday to help Haiti survive a hard future, Canadian medics in this port town were dealing with lines of suffering that grow longer each day.
Canadian soldiers and sailors, aided by their air force peers flying above, have built a small medical aid station on the docks. To the people of Jacmel, it has come to symbolize a line of hope, between the disaster and the sea.
Last Saturday, 60 patients made their way to the guarded gate.
On Sunday, the number was 140.
As Canadian sailors from HMCS Halifax help clear routes in the town, the wounded and the sore arrive on foot.
The survivors of the magnitude 7 earthquake that claimed as many as 200,000 people hold ripped cloth over festering wounds or try to comfort feverish babies under a hot sun.
The Canadians have also helped to secure aid drops, a process that was near calamity, locals explain, before the military showed up.
Maj. Annie Bouchard, the medical platoon commander with Canada's Disaster Response Team (DART), told QMI Agency on Monday that word is spreading high into the nearby hills, that the Canadians are offering aid and comfort.
Nursing a broken right hand from a fall on shattered ground, Dr. Bouchard added the line at the gate has often been packed with sick and frail children.
As she spoke, behind her in one of the tents, Canadian navy medic Jennifer MacDonald checked the tender belly of a little girl who had been vomiting.
It's the able seaman's first foreign deployment.
"The people are appreciative -- they're just looking for any help at all," said the Petawawa, Ont.-based sailor.
The child she checked stayed perfectly still. Quality medical care has long been scarce around Jacmel. Even the children seem to appreciate this fact.
Marie Chelan nudged to the front of the line, hoping to have her feverish three-month-old son, John, checked out. She and the child have been sleeping on the street with no coverings since the earthquake.
"Where else could I take him but here?" she asked.
Nearby, there's a box of toys -- trucks and dolls handed out for sudden wonderment.
But it's not just the young the Canadians treat gingerly.
On Monday, Leris Adonis made his way, with one leg, to the medical outpost.
He lost the leg before the quake. That's not what was bothering the 90-year-old Haitian -- an age he only guesses at since his birth certificate was lost long ago.
Instead he explained: "I'm just angry all the time, and I can't eat.
"Not since the earthquake."
The Canadians took time with him, before sending him off with some pills for other ailments.
"I'm glad I came," Adonis said as he walked up the street. "I only feel a little angry now."
This week, the dominion watched over by the Canadians is expected to grow.
DART officials plan to start chopper flights, to check on more remote mountain communities.
Rather than waiting for them to come down to show up at the medic station, a dose of hope may finally come to them.
By Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service
January 17, 2010
http://www.canada.com/news/world/medics+everything+short+supply+except+wounded/2450897/story.html
The injured continued to arrive at the gates to the field hospital Saturday in front of the Laboratoire National de Sante Public in Port Au Prince where Canadian Forces medical personnel tried to mend broken bodies with cardboard.
Facing limited supplies and an endless need, Canadian military personnel were forced to reuse latex gloves and resort to cardboard ripped from supply boxes for splints, said Cpl. Alexander Robitaille, a medic with the Canadian Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART).
“We use what we have. We don’t have a lot of supplies. That is why we use cardboard. It works, it is stable,” said Robitaille, after a day mending bodies. “We just try to use less things ... we are waiting for more (supplies).”
Robitaille said he did not know when additional medical material would arrive.
The team was working out of two field hospital tents with their patients laying on stretchers at one end, and the operating room at the other.
A young girl whose foot was amputated was carried out by her father, and a young woman with an amputated arm was helped through the gates by two women late Saturday afternoon. A baby was also delivered Saturday at the Belgian-run field hospital.
Medical staff often have to turn to amputation because wounds are infected beyond healing, some crawling with maggots, said Robitaille.
“Some people have been caught in the rubble for three four days, so they couldn’t move, they couldn’t do anything to clean it,” he said.
The Belgian doctors perform the amputations.
On Friday, the Canadian medical crew treated 42 patients.
But the mended faced a high chance of aggravating their wounds from infection and failure to take their medication, said Robitaille. Those whose legs are put into cardboard splints often don’t have crutches or wheelchairs to allow for the rest needed to mend broken bones, he said. Many also cannot read and could forget the instructions for their medicine.
Across the street a makeshift city has sprung up and those that live there often go to the field hospital for help.
“It is not really clean there and it has all the things for infections and disease,” said Robitaille, who is on his first deployment and landed Wednesday with the DART reconnaissance team.
“It is a drop in the bucket,” said Master Cpl. Richard Robichaud, also with the medical team. “I would rather have a drop in the bucket, than the bucket empty.”
Robichaud said one man gave them “two thumbs up” after they mended his leg the day before.
Outside the gates Saturday, a crowd of Haitians gathered, some pleading to get in. Others just watched.
Dave Coffie, 12, had been waiting for two days to get into the field hospital for treatment for a broken lower leg, said his father Prinston Coffie, 46.
“A block of cement fell on his leg,” said the elder Coffie. “My son is my life, my life is broken.”
Moments after he uttered those words, the gates opened and his son was taken into the field hospital.
Next door, at Hospital de la Paix, it was chaos. Patients lay outdoors, in the hallways, flies landing on their exposed limbs, rags used as bandages soaked with blood. The smell of rotting flesh soiled the air.
Handwritten notes outlining their ailments were taped to the metal frames of some of their beds.
Iva Juan-Batista, 18, couldn’t stop crying as she held her two-year-old son whose nose had been broken when Tuesday’s earthquake destroyed their house.
He was being held by his paternal grandmother when the earth shook. The grandmother died. So did the boy’s father, Ricardo Regulier, 26.
“I am so very sad, I am so sad. I am depressed,” said Juan-Batista. “I have no help.”
She began to weep again, holding her son.
Dr. Mark Edwin Casseus, whose aunt lives in Montreal, said he had been working non-stop since Tuesday when he started at 6 p.m. and treated the wounded until 6 a.m. the next day with nine other doctors.
“It was horrible,” said Casseus. “There was only 10 of us, it was horrible — 400 people, open fractures, crushing trauma.”
He said they lack gauzes, IV bags, antibiotics, an X-ray machine and a functioning operating room.
“We manage to get by, but it’s not adequate,” said Casseus.
Medical teams from Spain, Chile and Cuba, however, were beginning to take charge of the hospital Saturday, first by separating patients by severity and limiting the number of family members allowed inside.
They were also bringing in medical supplies and commencing operations, said Hediberto Perez, with the Chilean medical team.
Order also returned to the front gates of the Canadian embassy where Canadian citizens seeking to flee Haiti had gathered, clamouring to get through the gates.
Canadian soldiers stepped in Friday to organize the lines, easing the processing by embassy staff.
Another load of 40 Canadians were put on an aircraft Saturday morning, bringing the total of evacuated to about 550 people, the military said.
==============================================================
Canada's medical relief team gets to work
By Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service
19 January 2010
Copy at: http://www.theprovince.com/health/Canada+medical+relief+team+gets+work/2458017/story.html
Medics and doctors from Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team landed in Haiti's coastal city of Jacmel Monday and immediately began healing broken bodies.
They treated patients under tarps outside a local hospital, damaged by the earthquake, where local doctors were doing their best to heal the badly wounded despite acute shortages.
"They have no surgery capability right now and that is the major problem," said Maj. Annie Bouchard, DART medical platoon commander. "Their anesthesia machine is broken and they have no supplies."
Bouchard said half of the 64 patients needed surgery to "either save their limb or save their life."
Jacmel, which sits south of Port-au-Prince, is the focus of Canada's efforts in Haiti.
"It's clear there is a need here for potable water and medical and construction equipment," said Col. Bruce Ewing, DART commander. "It's a perfect set up for the DART."
Ewing said that DART plans to set up a medical clinic that will be able to treat 250 people a day and there are plans to also provide care in the surrounding areas through mobile medical units.
"It's terrible for a lot of people, a lot of people lost their homes," said Colette Chandler, a local woman who said she was a cousin of Governor General Michaelle Jean, whose family lived in Jacmel.
Ewing said the area was at the top of the list for Canadian deployment shortly after the first reconnaissance team landed.
"No one else appeared to be thinking about coming," he said.
HMCS Halifax is expected Tuesday to arrive off Jacmel's coast and will provide some 50 sailors.
Ewing said 60 DART members were on the ground Monday, including 25 medics and "four or five" doctors, the rest are security forces.
The team, however, faces major logistical challenges as the roads remain blocked and the port is damaged, meaning the navy will have to come ashore in smaller boats.
The UN is also currently on the ground along with Colombian and Brazilian search-and-rescue teams.
The local Haitian police have since abandoned their posts and local government is non-existent.
A UN force from Sri Lanka is also currently deployed in Jacmel, where an estimated 84,000 people are homeless.
..........
article continued at link above.
==============================================================
Canadian medics bring hope
Aid station a symbol to Haitians
By THANE BURNETT, QMI Agency
26 Jan 2010
link : http://www.torontosun.com/news/haiti/2010/01/26/12615966.html
As world powers met in Montreal on Monday to help Haiti survive a hard future, Canadian medics in this port town were dealing with lines of suffering that grow longer each day.
Canadian soldiers and sailors, aided by their air force peers flying above, have built a small medical aid station on the docks. To the people of Jacmel, it has come to symbolize a line of hope, between the disaster and the sea.
Last Saturday, 60 patients made their way to the guarded gate.
On Sunday, the number was 140.
As Canadian sailors from HMCS Halifax help clear routes in the town, the wounded and the sore arrive on foot.
The survivors of the magnitude 7 earthquake that claimed as many as 200,000 people hold ripped cloth over festering wounds or try to comfort feverish babies under a hot sun.
The Canadians have also helped to secure aid drops, a process that was near calamity, locals explain, before the military showed up.
Maj. Annie Bouchard, the medical platoon commander with Canada's Disaster Response Team (DART), told QMI Agency on Monday that word is spreading high into the nearby hills, that the Canadians are offering aid and comfort.
Nursing a broken right hand from a fall on shattered ground, Dr. Bouchard added the line at the gate has often been packed with sick and frail children.
As she spoke, behind her in one of the tents, Canadian navy medic Jennifer MacDonald checked the tender belly of a little girl who had been vomiting.
It's the able seaman's first foreign deployment.
"The people are appreciative -- they're just looking for any help at all," said the Petawawa, Ont.-based sailor.
The child she checked stayed perfectly still. Quality medical care has long been scarce around Jacmel. Even the children seem to appreciate this fact.
Marie Chelan nudged to the front of the line, hoping to have her feverish three-month-old son, John, checked out. She and the child have been sleeping on the street with no coverings since the earthquake.
"Where else could I take him but here?" she asked.
Nearby, there's a box of toys -- trucks and dolls handed out for sudden wonderment.
But it's not just the young the Canadians treat gingerly.
On Monday, Leris Adonis made his way, with one leg, to the medical outpost.
He lost the leg before the quake. That's not what was bothering the 90-year-old Haitian -- an age he only guesses at since his birth certificate was lost long ago.
Instead he explained: "I'm just angry all the time, and I can't eat.
"Not since the earthquake."
The Canadians took time with him, before sending him off with some pills for other ailments.
"I'm glad I came," Adonis said as he walked up the street. "I only feel a little angry now."
This week, the dominion watched over by the Canadians is expected to grow.
DART officials plan to start chopper flights, to check on more remote mountain communities.
Rather than waiting for them to come down to show up at the medic station, a dose of hope may finally come to them.
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 410
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/755843
This Haitian town is singing Canada's praise
Disaster response team's emotions run high as grateful Haitians turn out to thank them
Brett Popplewell
Staff Reporter
JACMEL, HAITI–Members of Canada's elite Disaster Assistance Response Team brushed tears from their cheeks Monday after more than 100 people from this town descended on the team's seaside field hospital to give thanks to the Canadians for their help in treating their wounded.
"It's overwhelming," said 30-year-old Cpl. Cheryl Belanger, a medical technician and member of DART who hails from Ottawa.
"To work all day long with people in need and then to end it with them coming out to thank us by singing in the street, it takes you out of the big picture for a moment."
The Canadians arrived in Jacmel last week when much of the town's population was still trapped in their demolished homes.
Today, survivors of the earthquake that reduced Governor General Michaëlle Jean's hometown to rubble are living in tents in the streets.
On Friday the team set up their field hospital on the pier at the base of the downtown core. From there a team of 40 medics have helped treat hundreds of people, including 240 on Monday.
"Today was our busiest day by far," said Maj. Annie Bouchard, the medic overseeing the field hospital, who has been working with a broken hand.
Four days into a deployment that could last 40 days, the major says DART's medical team is already operating near its limits.
"We can't really handle any more (patients) than what we had today," said Bouchard, a native of Quebec City.
"We need NGOs to open up here to give us some relief. We haven't had any deaths in (our field hospital) yet, but we have seen big wounds."
Many of the first foreign aid workers to arrive in Haiti are now rotating out. As DART members treat the wounded on the Jacmel pier, exhausted aid workers just metres away board ships bound for the Dominican Republic.
"We are tired," said French aid worker Lamotte Quenten, heaving his bag over his shoulder and walking onto a military ship waiting for him and 15 other aid workers who had been on the ground for more than a week.
As the first wave of volunteers begins to leave the crisis in Haiti, the mass movement of refugees from Port-au-Prince is only beginning to take its toll on the countryside.
Jacmel, a town on the south coast of Haiti, is not the final destination for most refugees, but it is on the route to some of the country's more rural towns, where refugees have begun to flee.
Bouchard said her team has started to see patients coming in from neighbouring towns including the capital, which remains a four-hour bus ride from Jacmel.
Last week the road from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel, which passes through Leogane (epicentre for the quake that left the capital in ruins), was closed due to damage caused by the tremors, which tore apart the asphalt and left boulders and debris. Now it is lined with a steady flow of buses and trucks of all shapes, colours, sizes and ages carrying refugees from the capital.
Intercity buses are so overloaded with refugees that they pile onto the roofs. The bare feet of refugees dangle over the back of pickup trucks as they climb the hills (also devastated, not by the quake but by a century of deforestation) that divide Port-au-Prince and Jacmel.
In the capital, the streets were chaotic and crowded, even by this city's standards, as refugees moved en masse for roads leading out. With the port and airfield monopolized by foreign aid groups, survivors are travelling by foot, car, truck and bus to escape the devastation.
The city is quickly emptying to the countryside. The government says 150,000 to 200,000 people have left Port-au-Prince, a city that housed 2.5 million Haitians before the earthquake.
As many as 1 million people need to find new shelter, the United Nations estimates, and there aren't enough tents or safe buildings for them.
As poor as the country is, many Haitians have long made a living as agricultural workers in the countryside. Whether that countryside, which lacks the aid resources of the capital, can sustain the influx of domestic refugees remains unclear.
This Haitian town is singing Canada's praise
Disaster response team's emotions run high as grateful Haitians turn out to thank them
Brett Popplewell
Staff Reporter
JACMEL, HAITI–Members of Canada's elite Disaster Assistance Response Team brushed tears from their cheeks Monday after more than 100 people from this town descended on the team's seaside field hospital to give thanks to the Canadians for their help in treating their wounded.
"It's overwhelming," said 30-year-old Cpl. Cheryl Belanger, a medical technician and member of DART who hails from Ottawa.
"To work all day long with people in need and then to end it with them coming out to thank us by singing in the street, it takes you out of the big picture for a moment."
The Canadians arrived in Jacmel last week when much of the town's population was still trapped in their demolished homes.
Today, survivors of the earthquake that reduced Governor General Michaëlle Jean's hometown to rubble are living in tents in the streets.
On Friday the team set up their field hospital on the pier at the base of the downtown core. From there a team of 40 medics have helped treat hundreds of people, including 240 on Monday.
"Today was our busiest day by far," said Maj. Annie Bouchard, the medic overseeing the field hospital, who has been working with a broken hand.
Four days into a deployment that could last 40 days, the major says DART's medical team is already operating near its limits.
"We can't really handle any more (patients) than what we had today," said Bouchard, a native of Quebec City.
"We need NGOs to open up here to give us some relief. We haven't had any deaths in (our field hospital) yet, but we have seen big wounds."
Many of the first foreign aid workers to arrive in Haiti are now rotating out. As DART members treat the wounded on the Jacmel pier, exhausted aid workers just metres away board ships bound for the Dominican Republic.
"We are tired," said French aid worker Lamotte Quenten, heaving his bag over his shoulder and walking onto a military ship waiting for him and 15 other aid workers who had been on the ground for more than a week.
As the first wave of volunteers begins to leave the crisis in Haiti, the mass movement of refugees from Port-au-Prince is only beginning to take its toll on the countryside.
Jacmel, a town on the south coast of Haiti, is not the final destination for most refugees, but it is on the route to some of the country's more rural towns, where refugees have begun to flee.
Bouchard said her team has started to see patients coming in from neighbouring towns including the capital, which remains a four-hour bus ride from Jacmel.
Last week the road from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel, which passes through Leogane (epicentre for the quake that left the capital in ruins), was closed due to damage caused by the tremors, which tore apart the asphalt and left boulders and debris. Now it is lined with a steady flow of buses and trucks of all shapes, colours, sizes and ages carrying refugees from the capital.
Intercity buses are so overloaded with refugees that they pile onto the roofs. The bare feet of refugees dangle over the back of pickup trucks as they climb the hills (also devastated, not by the quake but by a century of deforestation) that divide Port-au-Prince and Jacmel.
In the capital, the streets were chaotic and crowded, even by this city's standards, as refugees moved en masse for roads leading out. With the port and airfield monopolized by foreign aid groups, survivors are travelling by foot, car, truck and bus to escape the devastation.
The city is quickly emptying to the countryside. The government says 150,000 to 200,000 people have left Port-au-Prince, a city that housed 2.5 million Haitians before the earthquake.
As many as 1 million people need to find new shelter, the United Nations estimates, and there aren't enough tents or safe buildings for them.
As poor as the country is, many Haitians have long made a living as agricultural workers in the countryside. Whether that countryside, which lacks the aid resources of the capital, can sustain the influx of domestic refugees remains unclear.
