Israel teams to stay on in Haiti another month
DEBKAfile Special Report
January 19, 2010, 10:52 AM (GMT+02:00)
IDF field hospital at full stretch in Haiti
After half a dozen survivors were rescued from under ruined Port-au-Prince buildings Monday by American, Russian and other teams, searches will go on for another day, although hope is fading.
Israeli paramedics are out and about, treating survivors on the spot before they are carried to the field hospital. There, 90 life-saving operations have been conducted in six days, five births and hundreds treated.
Special equipment and medication are also saving the lives of preemies.
The IDF Homeland and Medical commands have decided to keep the Israeli teams in place for another month. They were originally assigned a two-week stint in quake-stricken Haiti.
As the volume of aid supplies through the neighboring Dominican Republic swells, so too does the exodus of desperate refugees. Aid is still not reaching millions in the devastated capital and the outskirts in time to save lives.
Still not in place are the five thousand field officers ordered by the UN and US marines to protect aid supplies and staff and permit orderly distribution of the basics amid dangerous violence and chaotic conditions.
The foreign rescue teams operating in Haiti are streaming the injured and sick to the Israeli IDF field hospital at the Antoine Izmery soccer field, still the only medical facility with a fully-equipped operating theater, intensive care units, child and maternity wards, laboratories and an X-ray facility operated by 250 staff.
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