PEASE SHARE WITH FRIENDS The Situation from Hurricane IKE in Haiti is Horrific. You can watch, hear or read about it at Democracy Now: www.DemocracyNow.org Please consider sending a contribution to: Partners in Health 800 Boylston St. 47th Floor Boston, MA 02199 Partners in Health is bringing Disaster Relief & this is one of the quickest ways to get help to the victims of the storm. If each person who reads this email sends even $10, that will be thousands of dollars. Mona: monad24@charter.net Wednesday , September 10, 2008 A detailed up-to-date report by Dr. Paul Farmer of "Partners in Health" * In Haiti, as many as 1,000 people have died and an estimated one million left homeless after the impoverished country was hit by four major storms and hurricanes in less than a month. We speak to the renowned physician Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, a group that provides free medical care in Haiti. After visiting Gonaives over the weekend, Dr. Farmer wrote, “After 25 years spent working in Haiti and having grown up in Florida, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything as painful as what I just witnessed." DR. PAUL FARMER: Well, the situation is perhaps most grave in Gonaives, but unfortunately, the entire country has been affected by these storms­southern Haiti, northern Haiti and even central Haiti, where we’ve never seen flooding before. Dr. Paul Farmer: As for getting into Gonaives, I had heard, even from the air where one could see approaching Port-au-Prince, that the city was under water. I had heard that it was not possible to get there. But we just went there in a jeep. There are three main ways into Gonaives: from the north, the south and from the central area of Haiti, where we work. We also work close to Gonaives, a little bit further south on the coast in a town called St. Marc, also badly affected by the storm. But Saturday night, Sunday morning, the way that we got in, the bridge through central­from central Haiti also collapsed. So, although it’s more difficult than ever to get into Gonaives, I’m confident that a determined relief effort could reach all of those people stranded there, since we’re not really specialists in disaster relief and we didn’t have much trouble getting there. In fact, my colleagues there today tell me they intend to go back to Gonaives, and whether that’s by using a small boat or just getting through the­past the collapsed bridge with four-wheel drive vehicles, we’ll see. But I think that what is clear is that people can get into Gonaives with water and food and temporary shelter. Dr. Farmer’s biography Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is a great read.