South Florida doctors outraged over gangs destroying Haiti's only trauma hospital
MIAMI - South Florida doctors are now reacting to Haiti's latest gang attack.
A partnership that began with equipment sharing 15 years ago after the devastating Haiti earthquake has now destroyed the equipment.
Once again, gangs are being blamed for destroying the country's only trauma hospital. This would be the hospital that these very gang members would go for help. Now there isn't anywhere for people with severe injuries to get treatment.
Drone video of the Bernard Mevs hospital in Port Au Prince shows some of the damage. You can see soot outlining the windows.
This latest attack began Sunday evening. Gang members are accused of first looting then destroying and finally setting fire to the buildings. The attack went on for days.
Doctors in South Florida have worked closely with Bernard Mevs, especially since the earthquakes almost 15 years ago through an organization called Project Medishare.
Pictures show inside the hospital of patients being treated. The equipment is now destroyed.
South Florida hospital supplies equipment to Haiti hospital
D. Barth Green, the Project Medishare's chairman, said millions of dollars of life-saving resources, some of it supplied by South Florida hospitals, including UM Health and Jackson Memorial Hospital, are gone.
"The first day, they threw Molotov cocktails over the wall and burned a lot of it, and then the next day, in spite of the police, trying to defend us, they overwhelmed and jumped over the wall and began to ravage and pillage and steal everything, which is ridiculous because ... they don't know how to use microscopes," Green said. "There's no place to sell them. But they broke everything they couldn't carry out. They destroyed millions of dollars' worth of monitors and microscopes and operating equipment, and ICU equipment, imaging equipment. They destroyed everything for no reason."
A CBS Miami viewer who lives in Haiti shot drone video. He said the violence is getting as bad as it was earlier this year despite the Kenyan troops on the ground.
Barth said they have the capabilities, the partnerships and infrastructure to build a scaled-down version of Jackson Ryder Trauma Center in Haiti but they cannot get into the country until things stabilize and the gangs are properly dealt with.
The MevsHospital team sent the following statement to friends and supporters.
