Patients were crammed into patios, corridors, verandas, and hallways at a hospital in southwestern Haiti, where a powerful earthquake flattened homes, shops, and other buildings over the weekend. Then, because of the hospital’s poor conditions, officials were forced to relocate them as best they could due to a looming storm expected to bring heavy rains Monday night.
Even those patients were fortunate in some ways. On Monday, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency raised the death toll from Saturday’s earthquake to 1,419 people, with 6,000 people injured, many of whom have had to wait for help in the sweltering heat, even on an airport tarmac.
“We had planned to put up tents (in hospital patios), but we were told that could not be safe,” said Gede Peterson, director of Les Cayes General Hospital.
This isn’t the first time that employees have had to improvise. The morgue’s refrigeration had been broken for three months, but after the earthquake on Saturday, staff had to store up to 20 bodies in the cramped space. Most were quickly taken to private embalming services or immediate burial by relatives. Only three bodies remained in the morgue on Monday.
The quake, which struck about 125 kilometres (80 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, nearly destroyed some towns and triggered landslides that hampered rescue efforts in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. When the earthquake struck, Haitians were already dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, gang violence, worsening poverty, and political unrest in the aftermath of President Jovenel Mose’s assassination on July 7.
With the arrival of Tropical Depression Grace, which is expected to bring strong winds, heavy rain, mudslides, and flash flooding, the devastation could quickly worsen. Light rain began falling in Les Cayes Monday evening, but the Civil Protection Agency warned that it could reach 15 inches (38 centimetres) in some areas. Rain was already falling heavily in Port-au-Prince.
“We are working now to ensure that the resources we have are going to get to the places that are hardest hit,” said agency head Jerry Chandler, referring to the towns of Les Cayes and Jeremie and the department of Nippes, which are in the country’s southwestern portion.
Injured earthquake victims continued to stream into Les Cayes’ overwhelmed general hospital, three days after the earthquake struck. Patients waited to be treated on stair steps, in corridors and the hospital’s open veranda.
“After two days, they are almost always generally infected,” said Dr. Paurus Michelete, who had treated 250 patients and was one of only three doctors on call when the quake hit.
