Rose Charities in Haiti - Update July 2010

Initially coordinating with AMDA International, which specializes in emergency relief, Rose Charities worked with AMDA Canada to help send emergency orthopaedic surgical teams to St Marc and Gonaives. Personnel came also from Columbia, Bolivia, India and Japan. Within several weeks a second initiative was commenced, in this case to Port au Prance, sending pediatric teams, both from B.C’s Children’s Hospital and other center(s) on Vancouver Island and Mainland B.C, Alberta . Generous support was given particularly from the B.C. Lower Mainland Sikh Temples and support groups and Dr Pargat Sigh, Consultant Pediatrician headed one of the earliest pediatric teams to travel to Port au Prince. In total (both surgical and pediatric), 11 teams were sent from the period some 4 days after the quake to May 2010.

AMDA followed up its surgical initiative, by sending a prosthetic team to help with the terrible problem of crush injury amputations while Rose Charities moved its focus to nursing.. The quake had completely raised the nursing school killing some 40 trainee nurses. so Rose Charities efforts to date have focused on the re-establishment of this facility with sending both nurse trainers, equipment and books

Rose Charities has pooled resources with Health Frontiers www.healthfrontiers.org , a highly respected and experienced Minnesota based Health Organization which runs projects in Laos, Malawi and other centers. Sharing a local office and project coordination center, Health Frontiers is concentrating on reestablishment of pediatric physician services.

Rose Charities is not primarily a disaster relief organization but will engage in such activities where and when the organizers feel they can be of assistance. Focus however is always, wherever possible to ensure involvement extends long term assistance, not simply carry out immediate assistance and then leave. In the case of Haiti, the commitment will continue to re-establishing and upgrading nursing, particularly pediatric nursing training and the provision of good, locally managed mother and child care into the future.