Physicians for Peace

Here’s another round-up of today’s news—including on-the-ground stories, pictures and updates—from our partners and friends on their work in Haiti.

American Red Cross
Read a situation report from President and CEO Gail McGovern.

AmeriCares
Chief of Staff Carol Shattuck recounts her experience on AmeriCares first emergency airlift to help Haiti with earthquake and humanitarian relief.

CARE
A story from the field by Rick Perera.

Catholic Relief Services
CRS turns a golf course into a relief camp in Port-au-Prince.

Concern Worldwide
Program Officer Susan Finucane offers a video update of Concern’s work on the ground in Port-au-Prince.

Leon H. Sullivan Foundation
“In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to hit the Caribbean nation of Haiti in more than two centuries, the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation has initiated a relief effort to help meet the population’s immediate needs and participate in long-term efforts to restore normalcy to a country plagued by natural disasters.

“To merely replace the unsound buildings and feed people temporarily will not be enough. My organization is working on projects to help Haiti and its people become more self-sufficient over the long term,” said Hope Masters, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Sullivan Foundation. “We who have so much must never forget to help those who have so little.”

Mercy Corps
Cassandra Nelson, Director of Multimedia Projects, talks with CNN.

Oxfam America
A blog update from staff member Coco McCabe on the ground in San Juan. Also, a video on distributing water in Haiti.

Partners in Health
An on-the-ground update from Dr. Evan Lyon, who has been working at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince since Saturday.

Physicians for Peace
A blog update and photos from Dr. Lisbet Hanson in Haiti. Also, Physicians for Peace will be holding a collection drive in Norfolk, VA this Saturday.

Save the Children
Save the Children sets up child friendly spaces in Haiti.

TransAfrica Forum
An online resource for the latest news on the earthquake and its aftermath. TransAfrica Forum also held a candlelight vigil at the Haitian Embassy in Washington DC earlier this afternoon.

World Food Programme
“Within the next week, we aim to move the equivalent of 10 million ready-to-eat meals so that people whose homes have been destroyed, and who have no access to cooking facilities, can feed their families,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran. “We are also procuring 4.2 million rations of supplementary ready-to-use foods specifically designed to give children the calories and nutrition they need each day.”

Our friends at Physicians for Peace have a couple of first-hand accounts from the aftermath in Haiti worth reading. You can find a full list of ONE’s partners here, many of whom are continuing to assess the situation and provide much needed relief to the region.

From Physicians for Peace:

News continues to come in from our partners in Haiti about the incredible devastation and the challenges of treating those in need. Dr. Lisbet Hanson, an Ob/Gyn who has done extensive work in Haiti to help expectant mothers, sends these reports from her Blackberry:

“Internet out today. Too busy anyway. Going to lie down for a while, then head back to help. Delivered twins, have set bones, helped with amputations, sutured, started IVs, washed wounds, done emergency ultrasounds… So much trauma, not enough of us to go around. Mirabelais standing room only. Patients are leaving Port-au-Prince any way they can. We are triaging patients in ED and church here in Cange. Stepping over people in shock with arms dangling, bones exposed.. It’s unbelievable…”

“Unbelievable day and its just getting started as people find their way out of Port-au-Prince to other hospitals. So many traumatic amputations, open fractures, puncture wounds and crush injuries…. We need orthopods and anesthesia people, lots of them. And more mattresses as wards full and churches filling. Will try to send photos when I can. If Partners In Health team can get here to replace us we are thinking of heading to DR end of the week. Will stay in touch. Thanks for support.”

If you have a few minutes today, be sure to check out the Physicians for Peace blog which in recent weeks has been posting correspondence from Robin Jones. She is a Registered Nurse and Women’s Health Care Nurse Practitioner who has been working with local clinics to assist in midwifery education.

It’s a fascinating, on-the-ground look at the progress being made to improve child and maternal health. You can read her reports here.

If you have a few minutes today, definitely check out the Physicians for Peace blog where they’re chronicling a medical mission trip to Zaria, Nigeria made up of a team of PfP volunteers and headed by Robin Jones, a registered nurse and women’s health care nurse practitioner.

The volunteers are working with local clinics there as part of a larger goal of helping sub-Saharan African countries reach the Millennium Development Goals. They are also there to provide education “so that those who are assisting during labor will have the knowledge they need to help prevent trauma to the mother and protect the health of the baby.”

Robin documents days 1 and 2 of her trip here, and days 3 and 4 here. She also managed to snap these great photos:

It was a great weekend in Virginia Beach, and not just because of the unusually beautiful October beach weather! At the Physicians for Peace Gala Reception this Saturday, ONE received the annual Charles E. Horton Humanitarian Award for Global Health for our grassroots efforts to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. ONE is especially honored to receive this award from one of our strongest allies in the fight against global poverty, Physicians for Peace, a Norfolk-based non-profit that has been training health care professionals and finding sustainable ways to heal and save countless lives throughout the developing world for two decades. The award serves as a living legacy to their founder, the late Dr. Charles E. Horton, an internationally acclaimed and recognized humanitarian.

Sheila Nix, ONE’s US Executive Director, accepted the award on behalf of all of the outstanding ONE members who raise awareness and engage their elected officials on issues of global poverty as advocates for the world’s poorest people.

The first ever Horton award recipient, Dr. Jeffery Sachs, recorded a special message for the event to congratulate ONE:

We would especially like to thank General Ron Sconyers and the PFP team for this great honor and a wonderful event this Saturday. Look forward to posting about future collaborations with Physicians for Peace!

-Margaret McDonnell and Lauren Conn

This Saturday, ONE will receive a special award from Virginia-based partner organization Physicians for Peace, for our grassroots efforts to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. Dedicated to the ideal that health care in the developing world can be best improved by providing training and education to health care professionals, Physicians for Peace has touched the lives of people in more than fifty countries around the world. ONE is proud to partner with a service organization that is engaged in such crucial and meaningful work.

We’d also like to thank the people who made this award possible: ONE members like you. In choosing ONE as the recipient of the Charles E. Horton Humanitarian Award for Global Health, Physicians for Peace honors the efforts of all ONE members for raising awareness, taking action and serving as advocates for the world’s poorest people.

The Physicians for Peace Gala Reception will take place this Saturday, 3 Oct 2009 at 6:30pm at Convention Center in VA Beach. You can find more information here.

-Lauren Conn

ONE is proud to be partners in the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease with Physicians for Peace (PFP), an organization that has educated health care providers throughout the developing world for two decades. Now in its 20th anniversary year, PFP will honor ONE as the recipient of the third annual Charles E. Horton Humanitarian Award for Global Health.

This award is bestowed in honor of the late Physicians for Peace founder, Charles E. Horton, M.D. Horton, an internationally recognized humanitarian, founded Physicians for Peace in 1989. Through Horton’s leadership, the organization has touched the lives of thousands of patients and doctors in more than 50 countries around the world. Past recipients include Senator Bill Frist, former co-chair of ONE Vote ‘08, and Professor Jeffery Sachs.

ONE’s U.S. Executive Director Sheila Nix said, “ONE is deeply honored to receive the Charles E. Horton Humanitarian Award for Global Health, an award whose namesake continues to inspire action and hope in the fight against global poverty and disease. Today, effective advocacy is more important than ever in supporting results-driven efforts that fight poverty, combat preventable disease, put children in school and create economic opportunity for the world’s poor. As exemplified by organizations like Physicians for Peace, huge advances against disease and poverty are being made every day thanks to smart programs and strong local leadership in developing countries. We are humbled to join the ranks of former award recipients Senator Bill Frist and Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and we thank Physicians for Peace for this honor.”

The award will be presented during Physicians for Peace’s Celebrate the Nations Gala Reception on October 3, 2009 in Virginia Beach, Va. Stay tuned for more information about the Gala and our ongoing partnership with PFP!

-Lauren Conn

On Friday evening I had the great fortune of attending a Physicians for Peace’s dinner in Virginia Beach where I learned more about the incredible work that our partners are doing in Eritrea. The Eritrean Ministry of Health, The George Washington University Medical Center (GWUMC) and Physicians for Peace have come together in the “Partnership for Eritrea” to bring the first post-graduate medical training programs to this Horn of Africa country. This remarkable collaboration is addressing the desperate need for healthcare providers in a country where there are only five physicians for every 100,000 people.

Among the honored guests was the Honorable Ghirmai Ghebremariam, Ambassador of the State of Eritrea to the United States. Dr. Jim Scott, Dean, GWUMC and Dr. Ellen K. Hamburger of the Children’s National Medical Center spoke of the pediatric and surgery residency program and Dr. Judy Sondheimer provided a testimonial about her personal experience as visiting faculty in Eritrea. Their presentations were truly inspired and the success of the Partnership could very well become a model for reducing “brain drain” throughout the continent. Learn more here.

-Lauren Conn

I just returned from a trip to Mali with five courageous American women. We witnessed the needless suffering so many women experience because they fight to survive on less than $1US a day. Not only do they live in deplorable conditions, but often, no one really pays much attention to their health needs—sometimes, not even themselves.

But there are real glimmers of hope.

My trip was with Physicians for Peace, which sends countless medical volunteers like me to take their teaching skills to some of the most desperate and impoverished places in the world. Sometimes they deal with diseases unheard of in developed countries– none more devastating and debilitating than obstetric fistula, the result of prolonged obstructed labor.

The six of us joined with our colleagues at the Millennium Cities Initiative and Mali’s leading fistula expert, Dr. Kalilou Ouattara, to learn, to teach and to empower.

This sinister condition, affecting millions of womn– most in Sub-Saharan Africa—is, as Dr. Ouattara says a “barometer of maternal health. When fistula decreases, maternal health is improving.” Fistula is a frequent reminder of failed health care systems, gender inequity and the pervasive insidiousness of poverty and the toll it takes on women.

When you look into the eyes of a young teen girl like I did, who has experienced her second miscarriage after suffering harrowing labor, you can’t help but be forever changed. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of thousands of little girls just like her. We owe it to them to do more. A woman’s right to health should not depend upon where she lives!

-Pam Allen, PA-C

Some ONE volunteers and I just returned from an amazing forum in Norfolk, VA! We heard from some incredible panelists on collaborative, sustainable health care in the developing world at the Physicians for Peace Global Health Forum 2009 at Norfolk State University. Global health expert and humanitarian Dr. Paul Farmer gave the keynote address. Dr. Farmer is founding director of Partners in Health, an organization that works with poor communities worldwide to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. He was glad to receive another ONE band from his “ONE peeps”, as he put it, and smiled for a picture with ONE volunteers and Brig. General Ron Sconyers, President and CEO of Physicians for Peace (left). General Sconyers has partnered with ONE before as a panelist in the ONE Town Hall discussion at Old Dominion University last month.

There is a lot of exciting advocacy work happening in southeastern Virginia where groups like Operation Smile and ONE partners Operation Blessing International and Physicians for Peace are headquartered – learn more and get involved today!

-Lauren Conn, ONE Field Organizer