Members of Israel’s Consulate in New York have landed in Haiti in order to help coordinate Israel’s relief effort. An Israeli field hospital has arrived and is being established near the Port-au-Prince airport on the soccer field located between Route Jeans-Jacques Dessalines and Route de Delmas in the Chancerelles neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The Israeli relief effort consists of teams from Magen David Adam (Israel’s Red Cross), Israel Police, rescue units, a medical staff of 120.
The Home Front Command Field Hospital can handle 500 patients a day, and will include operating rooms and maternity facilities. Nearly every hospital in Haiti was destroyed in Tuesday’s earthquake.
The IDF’s chief medical officer, Brig. Gen. Nachman Esh, said that while the field hospital will largely treat trauma patients, similar to those encountered in a war, specialists in various other fields have also been sent.
“We expect to have to deal mainly with trauma cases, but when we arrive there, we also expect to encounter the secondary wave of infections and diseases, as well as the routine cases that the local hospitals would usually deal with,” Brig. Gen. Esh said.
“Our decision to immediately dispatch a large delegation of doctors, nurses, medics, rescue forces as well as drugs and medical equipment to Haiti expresses the deep values which have characterized the Jewish people and the State of Israel throughout history,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“I walked around the capital’s streets, and it was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. There is impalpable hardship and anarchy. No one knows who’s running the country. There are thousands of people laying on the road, and dozens of bodies in every street corner,” said Amos Radian, Israeli Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.
For more information and to speak with representatives of Israel’s relief team in Haiti, please call Ambassador Radian directly at 011-881-631-575-508. Ambassador Radian is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Italian, and Hungarian.
To speak to an Israeli diplomat stateside regarding Israel’s efforts in Haiti, please contact Keren Gelfand at 312-593-2535 or kereng@newyork.mfa.gov.il.
