Save the Children and AmeriCares have delivered 16.5 tons of medical supplies to doctors who have treated more than 85,000 Haitians in the wake of the earthquake, which killed an estimated 111,000 people, according to the most recent estimates Monday.
AmeriCares is based in Stamford and Save the Children has its headquarters in Westport. In the week after the earthquake struck, AmeriCares raised more than $6 million for medical supplies, with Save the Children distributing the supplies. The organization is readying a new airlift with another 10 tons of medical suppliers.
Separately last week, the Stamford-based pharmaceuticals company Purdue Pharma L.P. announced it would donate $5 million in pain medication and antiseptics to the Haiti relief effort.
“More than 800 men, women and children (are) receiving treatment at (the Centre Hospitalier du Sacre-Coeur) every day,” wrote Carol Shattuck, AmeriCares chief of staff, in a blog posted Sunday from Haiti. “The hospital was severely damaged and most patients are in tents serving as makeshift hospital wards. Only surgeries take place inside the building. Despite the challenges, 40 surgeries are performed each day ”¦ As I walked between the tents, it was organized chaos with triage happening in front of our eyes. Doctors were reading X-rays by sunlight and mothers were holding their babies as doctors treated them.”
Save the Children has four mobile health teams in operation and its mobile clinic in Leogane is treating 100 people daily.
AmeriCares is accepting donations online www.americares.org; as is Save the Children at www.savethechildren.org, or by calling 1-800-728-3843 or 1-203-221-4030. Donations of $10 can be made by sending the text message “SAVE” to 20222.
