Haiti: New Life Amid the Rubble (2/2/10) | Doctors Without Borders

via doctorswithoutborders.org

This just posted today by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF):

"Immediately following Haiti’s devastating earthquake Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams worked around the clock to meet the overwhelming demand for severe trauma or orthopedic surgery. At the same time, MSF also provided emergency obstetrics care for pregnant mothers, including performing more ‘routine’ life-saving operations, such as Caesarean sections.

"After the earthquake, 18-year old Djenny was one of the first women to deliver a child in Isaie Jeanty hospital in the Chancerelle area of Port-Au-Prince. Assisted by the MSF team, Djenny gave birth to a healthy little boy, Mike, and they have since been joined by many others in the now-bustling maternity ward.

"Before the earthquake, Isaie Jeanty hospital specialized in obstetric and maternity care. However, to meet enormous surgical needs, MSF, working together with staff from the Ministry of Health, began to offer a wider range of services, including orthopedic surgery, post-operative care, physiotherapy and mental health support. Yet, Isaie Jeanty continued to remain a referral centre for maternal care, with MSF helping deliver an average of 12 babies each day, more than 40 percent of which are caesarian sections.

“'We’ve delivered so many premature babies as a result of trauma,' says Eva de Plecker, an MSF midwife in Isaie Jeanty. 'Women are coming to us with pre-eclamspia or eclampsia - serious conditions exacerbated by stress. Though Haiti had an extremely high rate of eclampsia before the earthquake, the massive toll of this disaster has probably further aggravated the condition.'”

Posted via web from Images Without Borders

Site Updated

In the last few days Paul R.Giunta has helped us get the site updated so that images are searchable, prices are easy to see, and the Doctors without Borders logo and endorsement is visible. Many other behind the scenes changes will make shopping faster and information more visible. Painstaking work in adding meta-data to each image was undertaken this week by myself and Paul.  Vance Green @vancegreen has also come on board to bring in the student activists and do daily upkeep on the site.

We are preparing for our national and international press releases and want to make sure the site is fully functional and easy to use before we invite the world to be our guest. Meanwhile you can contact your local press and please email, invite people to join as Facebook fans, and especially please come over and buy one pretty thing as a gift to yourself and the people of Haiti.

Each day there is more good news and more people offering to help and participate in various ways. We have over 110 generous photographers and have started a waiting list for others that wish to be involved. Since we are limiting each print to 10, they should rotate quickly and everyone will be included. There is a great deal of interest generated thus far, and we want to make sure that it translates into sales and funds for Doctors without Borders. We can use everyone's help in promotion before the full press release hits. If you have suggestions or contacts about venues for promotion please contact myself @Ithili or @laurabergerol via Twitter with information.

We are trying to plug in the excellent ideas and improvements you have suggested as fast as possible. Please remember that Paul, Laura, and I have day jobs too that we have to get back to, but we are working behind the scenes as fast as we can at about 12-14 hours a day!

Last, but not least, we are pleased to announce that Lizzie Caston has taken on Images without Borders as a pro bono account and is donating her expertise in communications and media relations. You can see her work: here

Laura and I would also like to give special thanks to some of the very first photograhers that came on board and supported us when this project was just an idea:

Photoshelter  http://www.photoshelter.com/
Gareth Glynn Ash http://www.thecelticcamera.com/
Dixon Hamby http://www.idixon.com/
Tomas van Houtryve http://www.tomasvanhoutryve.com/
Martin Vargas http://www.33photo.com/bienvenue/

First check sent for Medicins sans Frontieres (dba Doctors without Borders)

MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES : DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS

Spoke with the person that handles Doctors without Borders/Medecins sans Frontieres major giving unit and they are thrilled about “Images without Borders” and sent us wire transfer info, logo, etc.  We are planning for a major revamp of our sites...look for that to come soon.  We will be integrating our sites and making sure that when anyone lands, that all they think about is buying images!