Haiti aid effort hit by fake coupon scam

New drugs blow to Haiti aid effort
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Feb 9, 2010 - The WHO stopped Tuesday providing free drugs to private clinics and NGOs in Haiti after reports patients were being charged, potentially dealing a big blow to the already stumbling aid effort. This followed distressing scenes of hungry survivors rubbing their bellies and shouting desperately on Monday after the UN suspended food supplies to some 10,000 quake survivors in the capital when fake coupons were discovered. "Only public hospitals are going to continue to receive the drugs for free," WHO spokeswoman Marie-Agnes Heine told AFP. "All others will have to pay." "There were reports about hospitals charging patients for treatment. I think we have to avoid this kind of misuse of materials and supplies." Heine said there would be a review after three months and stressed that the new rules would allow the UN's health agency to keep a closer watch over its drug stocks.

Meanwhile, doctors treating a frail Haitian man said they believed he miraculously survived 27 days buried in rubble after last month's devastating earthquake, but there was no explanation of how. The rescued man, named as Evans Monsigrace, told doctors at a University of Miami field hospital in the capital Port-au-Prince that he had been buried by the January 12 quake while cooking rice. "Amazingly he got out after 27 days. It's amazing and we are proud to have him here," said doctor Dushyantha Jayaweera, the chief medical officer at the center. It was not immediately possible to verify Monsigrace's claim and there was no concrete explanation for how he survived so long if he was trapped under the rubble without access to water. The emaciated survivor was brought into the hospital on Monday and treated for dehydration by emergency doctors, Jayaweera said, adding that he was "alert" and in a stable condition.

According to the man's mother, he was discovered by people clearing debris who then alerted Monsigrace's brothers. "I think it tells us about people not giving up on their loved ones, they kept looking and kept hoping," Jayaweera said. Some 135 people are known to have been saved from the rubble by international rescue teams since the quake. The last person rescued in Haiti was a 16-year-old girl pulled out by a French rescue team almost two weeks ago. Angelina Jolie injected star power into the relief work following the quake that killed more than 200,000 people, visiting UN staff and touring the refuge caring for the children at the center of the American kidnap case. Hollywood starlet Jolie, also a UN goodwill ambassador, landed at a UN base in Port-au-Prince, where she was seen wearing a black jacket and sunglasses, before touring the SOS Children's Villages refuge outside the capital.

The center is caring for 33 children that 10 Americans have been charged with kidnapping after attempting to take them unauthorized across the Dominican border in a bus. Haitians whose children wound up with the Americans told the judge in the case on Tuesday that they gave the missionaries permission through a Haitian pastor to take them, the Americans' lawyer said. One man, who did not want to give his name, said before entering the hearing that he had handed his 15-year-old son over to them because he had "fractured his foot in the earthquake" and needed treatment. The Americans, from Idaho, were arrested on the border with the Dominican Republic on January 29 as they traveled with the busload of children and were charged last week with kidnapping and conspiracy. They have claimed they had no ill-intent in taking children they thought were orphans.

by Staff Writers
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Feb 8, 2010
The struggling aid effort in Haiti was hit by another setback Monday as the UN halted deliveries to some 10,000 quake survivors after discovering that fake coupons were in operation.

An agitated crowd of around 100 people continued to wait well into the afternoon at the drop-off site close to the town hall in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville as others clamored to get tickets valid for Tuesday.

"We need food!" one old lady shouted at a guard charged with manning the steel bars blocking the entrance to the town hall offices.

Others simply pointed to their mouths and stomachs.

UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman David Orr said the suspension would affect around 10,000 survivors of the massive January 12 earthquake that killed over 212,000 people and left an estimated one million people homeless.

The United Nations agency has set up 16 food distribution points across the city, handing out 25-kilogram (55-pound) sacks of rice designed to feed a family for two weeks.

Orr said WFP partners hoped to restart the distributions at the affected site on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Laura Silsby, the leader of a group of 10 American missionaries arrested at the Dominican border for trying to smuggle out a busload of children, appeared in court to answer kidnapping charges.

"I am trusting God to reveal all truths and that we will be released and exonerated of charges, and we are just waiting for the Haitian legal process to complete," Silsby said.

"It went very well," she told reporters as she left the hearing and was taken back to the police station where she and her nine colleagues from the Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge are being held.

The other nine were expected to be heard on Tuesday.

"We're doing very well. God is good. He's sustaining us. We've been given great care," she said.

The defendants, who acted without authorization from the Haitian government, claim they meant no harm and simply wanted to give the children a better life in an orphanage they planned to set up in the Dominican Republic.

But soon after their arrest on January 29 it emerged that several of the 33 children were not orphans, although some of their parents have admitted they agreed to give away their kids.

"The children have parents," acknowledged lawyer Aviol Fleurant, who is representing the Americans after their previous attorney quit the case over accusations he was trying to bribe the judge.

"They were there in the name of humanity, in the name of the human heart to help Haitians cross the border because everything was dysfunctional in Haiti at the time," Fleurant said.

A final decision from the judge is expected within three months after the proceedings are completed, and the Americans face lengthy prison terms if convicted of child trafficking and criminal conspiracy.

The case has been criticized as a distraction from the stumbling international aid effort to bring Haiti, already the poorest nation in the Americas before the January 12 tremor, back on its feet.

Haitian President Rene Preval was expected in Quito Tuesday for a donor conference organized by the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

The situation is still dire in the Caribbean country almost one month after the disaster, as disease breaks out in squalid makeshift camps and the massive aid effort struggles to house people before the arrival of seasonal rains.

At the central immigration bureau, hundreds of Haitians queued in line for a precious passport to leave. Others simply massed in front of the entrance.

An official directing the crowd with a bullhorn said only renewals would be handled due to overwhelming demand and that those wanting a passport for the first time would have to come back next week.

Massive lines of visa seekers have also appeared before the US embassy.

A man waiting in front of the immigration office said he had been coming every day for about a week, hoping to join his parents in France. He said the destruction has left him seeking a better life for his family.

"Everybody's looking for a way to leave," said Jourdain Jean Nickson, 30.

Meanwhile screen starlet Angelina Jolie on Monday visited some of the Haitians who had been transported to neighboring Dominican Republic for medical care.

Oscar-winner Jolie toured the pediatric wing of Dario Contreras Hospital in Santo Domingo, a leading local trauma hospital, visiting Haitian children being treated there.

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In Haiti, doctors struggle with new wave of injured
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Feb 8, 2010
Nearly a month after an earthquake devastated Haiti, medical teams still treat trauma patients but also face a new wave of ailments linked to poor hygiene and squalid, cramped living conditions. After three sleepless nights with debilitating pain in her lower back, 53-year-old Anne Setoute waited for her turn at the Canape Vert hospital in the capital Port-au-Prince. Her house came crash ... read more

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