Summary Of Haiti After The Earthquake By Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer’s novel, Haiti After the Earthquake, is an amazing narrative from someone closely connected to the events which unfolded on January 12th, 2010. It serves as a powerful depiction of how a nation in need redefined resilience, recovery and sustainability, especially within the context of international aid. Dr. Paul Farmer has been involved with work in Haiti for the past 30 years. In the late 1980’s, Dr. Farmer and his colleagues founded Partners in Health, an organization dedicated to providing basic medical care and services to the people of Haiti, most notably the more vulnerable populations. Their goal is to bring modern medical care and better social services to the more neglected communities in Haiti, and included basic

Many hospitals and clinics were damaged, including one of the nursing schools, killing 150 students. Days following the earthquake, rescue and relief workers began pouring into the region. Dr. Farmer was one of the first to arrive in country with medical supplies and other resources necessary to assist but the task of triaging patients to appropriate care centers and placing volunteers in the right place was overwhelming amidst a country in shock. NGO’s filtered in from across the world and set up their own “semi-autonomous worlds” (Farmer, pg. 15). The General Hospital became a make shift tent city for the dead, wounded, and

Farmer discusses the “acute-on-chronic” problem facing Haiti. He describes these as the issues which have existed for a lengthy period of time and then became monumentally worse and brought about new issues after the earthquake happened. Before the earthquake, Haiti had been declared one of the most water-insecure countries in the hemisphere. Haiti was, and remains, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 70% of the population living on less than $2 a day. By the time the earthquake in Haiti struck, the country had withered into a nation barley functioning. Haiti’s infrastructure was crumbling, the government was corrupt from continuous political instability, few professionals remained (such as doctors who had long ago moved on to better opportunities) and basic resources were hard to come by. Local food resources were also scant. Most food products were imported and/or donated from other nations meaning little was locally grown, an example to how the Haitian agricultural system was undermined and therefore left unsustainable. Added to the country’s plight was the damage caused by hurricanes in the years leading up to the earthquake. The deep-rooted social and economic problems made it difficult to deliver basic services to large numbers of people and created a system which made it difficult for relief contributions to reach those most in