AP Photo/Matias Delacroix
- Local authorities had to negotiate with gangs to get a convoy of humanitarian workers to impacted areas, the Associated Press reported.
- Tropical Depression Grace is expected to bring heavy rainfall and wind to the island on Monday night.
- Pain medication and other medical supplies are running low, according to doctors on the ground.
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Hospitals in southwestern Haiti have been overwhelmed by an influx of patients following a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Saturday morning near Saint-Louis-du-Sud.
Multiple factors have made it difficult for health care staff to treat survivors, including gangs, extreme weather events, and shortages of medical supplies, the Associated Press reported.
Local authorities negotiated with gangs who control the southwestern peninsula for access to the area, allowing an initial convoy of six vehicles with staff from UN agencies to reach impacted communities on August 15, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update.
Across the island, Haitians and humanitarian workers are bracing for Tropical Depression Grace, which meteorologists forecast will bring heavy rain and wind to the island on Monday night. The heavy rainfall may potentially cause flooding and mudslides, according to warnings from the National Hurricane Center.
The general hospital in Les Cayes, which was in the earthquake's epicenter, has been so overwhelmed with patients that some are waiting to be treated on stairways, in corridors, and in the hospital's open veranda, AP reported.
"After two days, they are almost always generally infected," Dr. Paurus Michelete, who has treated 250 patients and was one of only three doctors on call when the quake hit, told AP.
Michelete also told AP that pain killers, analgesics, and steel pins to mend fractures were running out.
Dr. Inobert Pierre, a pediatrician with the nonprofit Health Equity International, which oversees St. Boniface Hospital, said that the transport of patients is limited and medication is running low, causing patients to sit and endure pain while they wait to be treated, according to AP.