For our family there was a lot of attention today spent on medical care. My adult son was in the hospital getting treatment, my wife went to a spine clinic for pain and I had a visit to the dentist. We three are all blessed with medical insurance that covers much of the expensive care we received today.
For the people of Haiti, despite the world focus on the country today, is experiencing a lack of medical care for a country suffering a tremendous disaster. Dead bodies are lying in the streets; serious injured persons are going without medical care and despite 10, 000 care agencies operating in the country there is significant lack of coordination and administration of services. People of Haiti did not have adequate medical care before this earthquake and now the thin fabric of medical care has been torn apart.
Today I read in the newspaper that President “Obama $33 billion for 2010 war push” over and above the $700 billion plus the military is requesting. Today President Obama said the USA would spend $100 million for aide to Haiti. How many $100 millions in $733 billion plus?
Today President Obama has said he would temporarily stop the deportation of Haitians from the USA but did not say he would give Haitians Temporary Protective Service (TPS), something normally given to people coming to United States from a nation with political or natural disaster upheavals.
Haiti was a French slave country where slaves freed themselves, and as one commentator said today on TV, have been paying for it ever since.
Haiti, after being run by a dictator for many years, finally twice overwhelming elected a popular president. However both times the president, making efforts to help the poor, was overthrown by a coup supported by the USA and he now lives in exile.
The USA is the wealthiest country in the world with an expensive medical care; Haiti is the poorest country in the world with no medical care system. While the USA spends billions each day to wage war, a $100 million is offered to a nation in distress. While citizens of countries, far from the USA, are allowed TPS status to immigrant to US, Haitians, living a few hundred miles from USA and suffering a tremendous natural and political disaster are turned away.
Too much contrast can ruin a picture and stir unrest in the deprived country. A person from a health agency that stresses medical training for Haitians pointed out how the many USA agencies and groups working in Haiti have not prepared Haiti for this disaster. They were all too busy “doing good” not working with each other and Haitian people in making structural changes.
Only by working together with the people in Haiti and with each other can we help Haiti rise from the rubble and become a democratic, sustainable nation. The contrast needs to be balanced.
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