AmeriCares Flying New Airlift of Medical Aid to Help Haiti

January 26, 2010

AmeriCares is sending more lifesaving aid to help survivors of Haiti’s devastating earthquake. The latest airlift of medical relief is scheduled to arrive in Haiti within the next few days. The latest airlift will arrive in Cap-Haïtien, approximately 80 miles north of Port-au-Prince, where earthquake survivors are being transported for medical treatment. Earlier shipments of humanitarian and medical relief are already helping injured earthquake survivors.

AmeriCares has chartered a DC-4 which will be loaded with more than ten tons of lifesaving aid including essential medicines, IV-solutions and anesthesia to help with surgeries. During the previous airlift, aid continued to be added to the flight up until the time of take off.

AmeriCares relief workers in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic have been working around the clock to distribute critical medical aid including antibiotics that fight infections and pain medicines for survivors with broken bones, as well as other essential relief supplies.

“Doctors are doing the best they can with the equipment and supplies they have. Haitian hospitals have little to begin with and the earthquake destroyed much of their supplies,” reports AmeriCares relief worker Brian Hoyer from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

AmeriCares is organizing additional aid deliveries from around the world. Aid includes:

Bottled water trucked in from across the U.S. is being consolidated in Miami and will soon be shipped to the Dominican Republic. From there is will be transported to earthquake affected-areas throughout Haiti.
AmeriCares is also delivering 2.3 million water purification sachets – enough to provide 45,000 families with enough safe drinking water for the difficult weeks to come. The supplies are flying in from Pakistan and Panama.
Baby food, rehydration fluids and other supplies to help children will soon fly out from Miami to help orphanages throughout areas of Haiti rocked by the earthquake.
From AmeriCares India, vital antibiotics and medicines critical in emergency hospital settings are being shipped out of Mumbai.
By boat and plane, 3.5 million bottles of water are being prepared for delivery. We are in the process of filling 30 twenty-foot shipping containers filled with bottled water with the remaining water to be airlifted out of Miami.

“We observed doctors resetting a woman’s severely broken leg without anesthesia; other caregivers were doing everything in their power to comfort her. We delivered pain medicines and other critical supplies, but more relief is desperately needed.”

Doctors traveling to Haiti to provide medical treatment are also receiving help from AmeriCares. More than $500,000 worth of supplies are helping volunteer doctors provide treatments ranging from surgeries for patients who were injured in the earthquake to basic health care for survivors.

AmeriCares has been providing humanitarian aid to Haiti since 1984, partnering with local health care organizations throughout the country. Over the years, we have delivered more than $145 million worth of medical aid and humanitarian relief to Haiti. AmeriCares helps partners serve more patients and avoid running out of basic medicines and medical supplies with regular shipments throughout the year.

For over 25 years, AmeriCares has responded with emergency relief and lifesaving aid to catastrophic disasters around the world that have affected millions of families including: Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., typhoons in the Philippines, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, earthquakes in China and Peru, and deadly cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe.

Your gift to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will help with our lifesaving response to this deadly disaster.