PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 14 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — A month after gangs blocked the distribution of fuel, Haiti’s hospitals face a serious crisis and most of them have reduced their services to a minimum.
Health centers such as Canapé Vert in this capital confirmed they only accept cases that do not require surgery because they cannot run the generator, vice-president of the institution Michel Théard told the newspaper Le Nouvelliste.
The Bernard Mevs hospital announced it is operating with a reduction of services, while the St-Luc foundation is in a “state of maximum alert,” its medical director Marc Edson Augustin said.
The day before, a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the shortage of hydrocarbons limited access to basic services and medical care, amid a resurgence of cholera.
As of Tuesday, 266 people were suspected carrying the disease, while 18 had died in hospitals, according to the balance sheet of the Ministry of Health and Population.
In addition to the institutional deaths, there were nine deaths in prisons and seven community deaths, bringing the total to more than thirty.
Armed groups have blockade Haiti’s main oil terminal for a month, without the Police being able to regain control of the strategic zone.
Members of the G-9 gang federation and allies have restricted access to Varreux since Sept 12, where 70 percent of Haiti’s fuel is stored.
They built trenches near the depot, set up smoldering barricades, kept the area heavily guarded, and even challenged the Government to regain control.
The trigger this time was the government’s announcement of rising fuel prices that doubled the cost of gasoline and increased diesel prices by 89 percent.
The protests, which until then criticized fuel shortages, inflation, increases in the basic food basket, and state management, worsened, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets to express their discontent with scenes of looting and violence.
Several organizations, including the United Nations, called to provide a humanitarian corridor to allow the distribution of the hydrocarbons that supply 86 percent of the country’s electricity. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
