The Israel Defense Force (IDF) field hospital in the Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince worked at full capacity yesterday, treating a relentless stream of victims from Tuesday's earthquake.
Overnight Saturday, Israeli doctors delivered a baby boy whose mother, Gubilande Jean Michel (24), promptly declared would be named 'Israel.'
Her three other children were at home with her parents. Her husband has been missing since the quake.
Meanwhile, the IDF's rescue teams continued to search for survivors, with team members saving the life of a customs clerk who had been trapped in his office.
Israeli officials note that from their experience with 10 previous relief missions in the aftermath of similar disasters, it is reasonable to believe survivors can still be located and extricated for five or six days, but very rarely beyond that point.
With most local medical facilities out of commission, a constant throng of Haitians needing urgent medical care surrounds the Israeli field hospital and ambulances are bringing the injured there. The hospital was set up on Saturday and is operating with about 40 doctors and 40 nurses.
More than 100 survivors have been treated, with three in 10 in serious condition and 50 percent moderately injured. Children comprise more than half of the injured, most with limb injuries and bone fractures. Nearly a dozen lifesaving operations have been performed.
Just minutes after landing at the airport in Port-Au-Prince and unloading their planeload of food and medical equipment, the IsraAid team traveled to the capital city's collapsed main hospital to join the lone local physician treating the injured there.
As the first foreign backup team to arrive at the hospital, the IsraAid team set up treatment rooms in four empty rooms, treating 60 patients with IV and administering medicine.
Logistics personnel remained near the airport where they set up camp and provided logistical support to local NGOs who were receiving relief items.
In light of the scale of the disaster, IsraAID is planning to expand the scope of its operation, and is organizing an additional team to be sent out next week.
Nurse Sheva Cohen from Kibbutz Ein Yahav in the Negev reports that, "The scenes in the hospital were horrible we saw people everywhere on the floors in the building and outside, people with amputations and bone-deep wounds, hundreds of them, the size of the catastrophe is unbelievable."
IsraAID's emergency response in Haiti is supported through donations from UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, American Jewish Committee, Bna'i B'rith International and The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago as well as other Jewish Federations in the North America.
Yesterday, the Israeli delegation to Haiti rescued one of the country's top income tax officials from the government office building which collapsed in the January 12 earthquake, Israel's Hebrew-language daily Haaretz reports.
The official, 52, who had been trapped underneath the rubble for four days, was found in moderate condition, suffering from several bone fractures and dehydration. He is currently being treated at the Israeli field hospital which was operational yesterday in a soccer field near the airport in Port-Au-Prince, the capital of the devastated Caribbean nation.
More than 50 people have been treated so far by the Israeli medical team, Israel Radio reported this morning, four of whom underwent operations.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Brigadier-General Shalom Ben Aryeh told Israel Radio that the Israeli delegation to Haiti is one of the biggest and most skilled on the island.
The IDF and the Foreign Ministry sent extra medical staff rather than a rescue team, after learning from the Haitian authorities that nearly all the country's hospitals were destroyed in the quake.
The Israeli delegation that landed in Port-au-Prince on Friday numbers about 220 soldiers and officers, including 120 medical staff to operate the field hospital.
The mission includes 40 doctors, 20 paramedics and 24 nurses, as well as medics and medical technicians. About a third of the delegation is made up of reservists who were called up specifically for the mission.
Israeli specialists in other types of disaster relief have also been sent.
After working round-the-clock for 38 hours, yesterday Israel's ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation in Haiti, working with the Mexican military delegation and Jewish volunteers from Mexico rescued eight students trapped under the rubble of the collapsed eight-storey Port-Au-Prince University building.
The six-man ZAKA delegation had arrived in Haiti aboard a Mexican air force Hercules, immediately after completing its work in recovery and identification of bodies and body parts following the Mexico City helicopter crash in which Jewish businessman and philanthropist Moises Saba and three members of his family were killed.
Head of the ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation Mati Goldstein sent an e-mail to ZAKA's Jerusalem headquarters in which he writes of the "Shabbat from hell. Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It's just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust - thousands of bodies everywhere. You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension."
Amid the stench and chaos, the ZAKA delegation took time out to recite Shabbat prayers. In a surreal sight, the ultra-orthodox Jewish men stood wrapped in prayer shawls on the collapsed buildings. Locals sat quietly in the rubble, staring at the men as they prayed facing Jerusalem. When they finished praying, the Haitians crowded around the delegation, kissing their prayer shawls.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Medical and Rescue Team has set up a field hospital and begun rescuing and treating earthquake victims in the Haitian capital of Port-Au-Prince.
The IDF team is locating and rescuing survivors trapped in ruined buildings, including many who were injured during the collapse of the UN headquarters.
The field hospital is equipped to receive dozens of ambulances evacuating the injured from the disaster-struck areas. Between Friday night and Saturday, dozens of truckloads of medical and logistical equipment were unloaded and the hospital was set up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdplDDY9MGA
The Israeli hospital is located in a soccer field near the capital's airport. Upon arrival, C4I teams laid the groundwork for the hospital by deploying a communications infrastructure.
Two teams, comprised of search and rescue personnel and canine operators from the IDF canine unit, were sent out on rescue missions, with the first team dispatched to assist in the rescue of survivors at the UN headquarters.
The rescue teams are working in cooperation with the local authorities. They will remain in Haiti for at least two weeks.
Online updates about the IDF Medical and Rescue Team in Haiti are available on Twitter at @IDFinHaiti.
