Just minutes after landing in the airport in Port-au-prince the IsraAID/F.I.R.S.T. team was met by David Darg, Operation Blessing Director in the field and his staff and joined with them to unload a planeload of food and medical equipment.

Just minutes after landing in the airport in Port-au-prince the
IsraAID/F.I.R.S.T. team was met by David Darg, Operation Blessing
Director in the field and his staff and joined with them to unload a
planeload of food and medical equipment. [photos courtesy Israel Sun/Zaka]

The Israeli medical professionals of IsraAID/F.I.R.S.T. traveled to the main Port-Au-Prince Hospital to start treating patients, joining local physicians at the site of the collapsed central hospital where thousands of wounded have gathered desperate for help.

"The scenes in the hospital were horrible we saw people everywhere on the floors in the building and outside, people with amputations and bone-deep wounds, hundreds of them, the size of the catastrophe is unbelievable. All of the injured were treated until we came by only one local doctor and we were the first foreign backup team to operate in the hospital,"  said nurse Sheva Cohen from Kibbutz Ein Yahav in the Negev

When the team arrived at the hospital they found most of the injured outside the building laying in beds in the building’s garden, probably out of fear of aftershocks and further collapse. The IsraAID team set up treatment rooms in four empty rooms, treating 60 patients with IV and administered medicine. While in the hospital, an infant with 60% burns died and bodies that had not yet been removed for burial were piled up in back.

In the meantime, the logistical personnel remain in the airport area to set up camp and assist local NGO partners with logistical support for relief items that were continuing to land.

Currently the teams are working around the clock to provide assistance to the injured. In light of the scale of the disaster, IsraAID is currently focused on expanding the scale of its operation, preparing an additional team that would be sent next week.

IsraAID’s emergency response in Haiti is supported through the generous donations of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, American Jewish Committee, Bna’i B’rith International, and The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago in addition to other Federations in the North America.

For more information please contact Shachar Zahavi at: [email protected]  or at (972) 054.5.679979