Press Release from Con­gress­woman Max­ine Waters:

She Assesses Recov­ery and Aid Dis­tri­b­u­tion Oper­a­tions; Meets with Pres­i­dent Pré­val, USAID, UN, and NGO officials

http://waters.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=168340

Con­gress­woman Max­ine Waters (D-CA) has returned to the United States after wrap­ping up a three-day mis­sion in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Con­cerned about the death and dev­as­ta­tion caused by the earth­quake and eager to eval­u­ate the progress of recov­ery and aid dis­tri­b­u­tion efforts, Con­gress­woman Waters made arrange­ments to travel to Haiti with­out requir­ing the State Depart­ment or mil­i­tary to divert resources to sup­port her trip.

While there, she vis­ited a num­ber of the makeshift hos­pi­tals and refugee camps that have sprung up around the capital.

“Words can­not ade­quately describe the ongo­ing human­i­tar­ian dis­as­ter that is unfold­ing in Haiti,” said Con­gress­woman Waters. “The earth­quake has left behind untold lev­els of death, despair, and out­right des­ti­tu­tion. Though I am encour­aged by the thou­sands of mil­i­tary, gov­ern­ment, and non­govern­men­tal oper­a­tions that are hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try, there is a crit­i­cal need for macro-level orga­ni­za­tion and coor­di­na­tion of the relief effort.”

Dur­ing her time in Haiti, Con­gress­woman Waters met with Hait­ian Pres­i­dent René Pré­val, offi­cials from the United States Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (USAID), the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Depart­ment of Defense, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the United Nations (UN) and the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) and staff from numer­ous non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions (NGOs).

Con­gress­woman Waters observed that many orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als are attempt­ing to respond to the cri­sis in Haiti. Many of these var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions are con­ven­ing in clus­ter meet­ings, an inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized dis­as­ter response mech­a­nism. But she con­cluded there is an over­whelm­ing need for bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion among the var­i­ous enti­ties and a coor­di­nated response, despite the valiant attempts of all the par­ties involved. One major obsta­cle ham­per­ing oper­a­tions in the coun­try is the exten­sive dam­age to infra­struc­ture such as build­ings, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, road­ways, and the port, which the Con­gress­woman said has resulted in “a logis­ti­cal night­mare.”

In addi­tion to gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion, Con­gress­woman Waters was able to secure direct assis­tance for peo­ple in need by pick­ing up the phone and request­ing help. For exam­ple, a call from the Con­gress­woman to USAID resulted in two tents and other med­ical sup­plies – pro­vided by the Los Ange­les County Fire Depart­ment, which deployed its urban search and res­cue team to Haiti to assist with res­cue and recov­ery efforts – for the health NGO Amer-Haiti and the National Orga­ni­za­tion for the Advance­ment of Haitians (NOAH) that are see­ing up to 300 patients a day. Within hours of receiv­ing the new equip­ment, their teams per­formed an oper­a­tion to save a preg­nant woman and her child.

“USAID and the L.A. County fire­fight­ers, who acted hero­ically and bravely for more than 10 days in Haiti, were able to come through again for those patients, and I was glad that I could make a dif­fer­ence for even a few peo­ple, but of course mil­lions of peo­ple in Haiti need our help now” said Con­gress­woman Waters. “Although that mother and her baby are fine, the con­cern for them and for the thou­sands of other patients in and around Port-au-Prince is their ongo­ing care. We need to con­tinue to deliver clean tents, med­ical sup­plies, and health per­son­nel so that the hun­dreds of ampu­ta­tions and other major surg­eries being con­ducted around the clock can be as safe and suc­cess­ful as possible.”

Basic sur­vival remains an imme­di­ate con­cern for Haitians right now. Access to food, water, and med­ical sup­plies is spo­radic, and shel­ter and open space con­tinue to be in high demand. Pres­i­dent Pré­val esti­mates that the coun­try needs approx­i­mately 250,000 tents to ade­quately house Haitians in need. Con­gress­woman Waters said, “tents are absolutely essen­tial because the impend­ing rainy sea­son will fur­ther spread dis­ease and increase expo­sure to the ele­ments if peo­ple are not ade­quately shel­tered. Tents must be at the top of the short-term pri­or­ity list.”

Addi­tion­ally, experts on the ground con­tinue to raise con­cerns about reach­ing vic­tims in the out­ly­ing, moun­tain­ous areas of the cap­i­tal. Some areas of Port-au-Prince have been inac­ces­si­ble for deliv­er­ies of food, water and supplies.

“What has really res­onated with me since return­ing home is the need for the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity to engage in robust and sus­tained recov­ery and rebuild­ing efforts for Haiti,” said Con­gress­woman Waters. “The out­pour­ing of ini­tial sup­port from the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity has been so heart­felt and over­whelm­ing, and I know that the Hait­ian peo­ple are extremely grate­ful. I am plead­ing with every indi­vid­ual, NGO, cor­po­ra­tion, and gov­ern­ment world­wide to con­tinue to look into their hearts, into their sched­ules and into their wal­lets to find out how they can help.”

Con­gress­woman Waters vowed, “I plan to dou­ble my efforts to assist Haiti in Wash­ing­ton. In addi­tion to intro­duc­ing leg­is­la­tion to com­pletely can­cel Haiti’s debt from mul­ti­lat­eral finan­cial insti­tu­tions and other inter­na­tional cred­i­tors, I will work closely with for­mer Pres­i­dent and UN Spe­cial Envoy to Haiti Bill Clin­ton, Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton, and my col­leagues in Con­gress to con­tinue to pur­sue cre­ative and sub­stan­tive ways to assist the coun­try dur­ing its imme­di­ate time of need and in the months and years ahead.”