Helping Haiti

How to lend a hand to earthquake victims and relief organizations

On Tuesday, Jan. 5, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing nearly 200,000 people, injuring numerous others and destroying much of the country’s infrastructure, especially in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. A few days later, another strong quake shook the area, causing even more damage and injury. Two hospitals were among the buildings destroyed, hampering efforts to deliver health care during this tragedy. In addition, many health care professionals and their families are hurt, missing or homeless, making it difficult to treat the wounded.

There are many ways you can help the victims of this disaster. These include donating money and medical supplies to relief organizations and lending a hand as a volunteer.

Below is a list of charitable aid organizations accepting monetary donations to help provide food, medical care and other emergency supplies and services to the victims. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of organizations providing relief to the Haiti earthquake victims. For a more complete list of agencies responding to the disaster and instructions on how to donate, visit the InterAction Crisis List.

Organizations providing medical aid and other resources to Haiti

• Doctors Without Borders: an international humanitarian medical organization that aids nearly 60 countries when threatened by violence, neglect or catastrophe.
• American Red Cross: an American emergency response organization offering humanitarian care to alleviate and prevent suffering.
• Partners in Health: a nonprofit organization that provides access to primary care, free health care education and basic needs fulfillment such as food and shelter.
• Pan American Health and Education Foundation: a foundation that provides medicine and medical equipment, health personnel and mobile clinics.
• International Medical Corps: an international humanitarian organization offering health care training, relief and development programs.
• Real Medicine Foundation: a nonprofit organization that provides disaster relief, including rebuilding communities and providing clinics, medicine and surgery.
• Physicians for Peace: an organization that provides training and education for health care professionals in developing countries.
• AmeriCares: a disaster-relief and humanitarian organization that provides immediate medical needs response and supports long-term assistance programs.
• Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti: a rural health system that provides medical care and community health and development programs for Haiti’s Artibonite Valley.
• Mercy Corps: a team of relief professionals that provides water, food and shelter to Haitians while planning for long-term recovery.
• CARE: a humanitarian organization that fights global poverty through education, emergency relief, health training and services and more.
• FEMA: a federal agency that provides first responders to disaster sites to aid sustainability and recovery.

Other ways to help

• To donate $10 to the American Red Cross via your phone bill, text “Haiti” to 90999.
• The American Medical Association (AMA) has created a volunteer registry for physicians interested in volunteering their services in Haiti. Click here for details.
• The U.S. Department of Health Services and the Association of American Medical Colleges have partnered to send trauma surgeons, orthopedists, anesthesiologists and other physicians with experience treating crush injuries to Port-au-Prince. Contact Michala Koch (Michala.Cook@hhs.gov) at HHS for details.
• Partners in Health is also seeking orthopedic surgeons, trauma surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, nurses and surgical technicians to treat the injured in Haiti. Donations of unused orthopedic and surgical supplies (e.g., sutures, non-powdered sterile gloves, bandages, syringes) are also being collected. Click here for details about both of these opportunities.
• AidMatrix delivers cash and in-kind donations to a variety of aid organizations, including CARE, MedShare and the American Red Cross.
• Some employers have offered to match employees’ donations to Haiti relief efforts. Contact your employer to see if such a program exists where you work.

For more information on what is being done to help the earthquake victims, visit this web page maintained by the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization.

Society members: If you are a Haiti volunteer or fundraiser organizer, if your clinic or organization is participating in a Haiti relief project, or if you are looking for additional ways to help the earthquake victims, e-mail communications@wismed.org.