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Disaster response includes rescuing the hospitals and supply chains that survivors will depend on for weeks and months to come. PAHO - WHO in the America’s region - is now appealing for urgent funding to support healthcare for 700,000 people as they try to recover from the devastation.
As people in Venezuela continue to suffer the consequences of their worst earthquakes in decades, rapid action from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, WHO in the Americas Region) is helping to save health services from collapse.
Within a day of the twin earthquakes of June 24 PAHO had dispatched its health assessment teams to Yaracuy state in north-central Venezuela. To date we know the earthquake has led to the deaths of more than 1700 people, with thousands more injured and in need of emergency healthcare. As the true toll of the disaster on patients, hospitals and medical staff continues to unfold, PAHO is expanding its urgent health operations in the country.
Chaotic Scenes
The country's hospitals and clinics are now struggling to function at the exact moment they're needed most. In its latest emergency report, PAHO outlines a picture of devastation in the health facilities of Caracas and La Guaira, the places hardest hit by the earthquakes:
- Overcrowding and surgical backlogs for trauma care, as the number of injured threatens to overwhelm capacity
- Several health facilities in critical condition, and others damaged by the earthquakes and aftershocks
- A potentially hazardous breakdown in infectious disease control and handling biological materials
- Dangerous gaps in care for pregnant women
- Health workers functioning under extreme stress, with a number still missing and others in need of psychological support
Emergency Teams
In response to the humanitarian emergency, PAHO has deployed a volunteer Emergency Medical Team specializing in intensive care to support hospitals in La Guaira. A further 38 international Emergency Medical Teams from 15 countries are on standby, including specialists in trauma care, hospital safety, mass casualty management and logistics. PAHO is also coordinating the procurement and delivery of vaccines, medicines, and supplies, including an emergency shipment from its strategic reserves in Panama sufficient to treat 10,000 patients. It is working with health authorities in Venezuela to assess health risks in the coming weeks, including an increased risk of diseases such as measles, diphtheria and yellow fever, and vector-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika, Oropouche and malaria, several of which are already circulating in the country.
PAHO has launched an emergency appeal to enable them to support 700,000 people in desperate need in the next months. This funding will support them to:
- Deliver emergency trauma and surgical care
- Restore essential health services
- Secure essential medicines and laboratory supplies
- Step up protection against diseases through ensuring safe water supplies and controlling for vector-borne diseases
- Mobilize mental health expertise for traumatized people
At a time when people in Venezuela need their health services more than ever, PAHO is responding to immediate needs and planning for the vital recovery period: mobilizing its experts, dispatching urgent medical supplies and bolstering services through emergency medical staffing.
You can can help them strengthen the health of people at their time of greatest need
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