Photos by Marko Kokic / Canadian Red Cross
Some two months after Hurricane Matthew lashed southwestern Haiti, a mobile team of Canadian, French and Haitian Red Cross staff and volunteers continues to journey daily to storm-hit villages to deliver critical health services. To date, the team has treated more than 2,500 patients, most of them living in remote villages that sustained significant damage and where there’s no access to clinical care. Here’s a look at the team at work last week in ravaged coastal areas of Grand’Anse.
The Red Cross mobile clinic has been operating since late October, focusing on hard to reach villages that have received scant, if any aid since the storm. As a result, large crowds form when the team arrives. Haitian Red Cross volunteer and local resident Michel Marie-Michena supports the clinic by setting up an orderly line and sharing health and hygiene information while patients wait to be seen.
At the Nationale Primary School in coastal Anse-d’Hainault, where the Red Cross has set up a clinic on this day, 5-year-old Tama Bienville gets registered by a Haitian Red Cross volunteer.
Marie Jean’s home in Anse d’Hainault was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. The 60-year-old has been living in temporary shelter since then and has recently been feeling sick, so she was relieved to hear that the Red Cross would be offering medical services at the local primary school. “It is very important what you are doing here — helping the sick and giving them medicine.”
In the storm-damaged town of Anse-d’Hainault, homes that were not well-built to begin with fell apart during the hurricane. Many, like this one, lost roofs and are now covered by donated tarps. They don’t always protect inhabitants from the elements, which contributes to health problems.
Roads to the devastated community of Capafou have been impassable since Hurricane Matthew. When the Red Cross mobile clinic arrived recently to offer health services, it was the first humanitarian assistance to reach the village since the storm hit.
Haiti Red Cross volunteers unload medical supplies from trucks that have finally made it into the remote village of Capafou and help set up a tented medical clinic there.
At the first opportunity to get medical consultations and treatment since the hurricane laid ruin to their community, families from Capafou rush to the mobile clinic.
Children from Capafou watch curiously as Red Cross staff and volunteers set up shop in their village to provide medical care.
This little boy from the village of Capafou gets an ear exam from French Red Cross physician, Dr Frédéric Birgel.
The mobile clinic is a joint effort of the Canadian Red Cross and French Red Cross, in collaboration with the Haitian Red Cross and the Ministry of Health. To support ongoing efforts by the Red Cross to deliver healthcare and humanitarian aid to people affected by Hurricane Matthew, please donate here.
