Haiti 6 months on: What next?

Six months after the devastating earthquake of 12 January, we have provided assistance to 24,000 older people and their families.

With 2 million people still living in temporary shelter, we recognise that there are challenges ahead, but as Tom Wright, the Chief Executive of Age UK, said following a visit to Haiti ‘The work we do is a journey. It’s not a one-off event. We need long-term change.’

Age UK participated in the emergency appeal of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and also carried out our own hugely successful fundraising appeal, which raised over half a million pounds.

In Haiti, we are working through our sister organisation, HelpAge International whose Chief Executive, Richard Blewitt, says:

‘The challenges facing the affected population in Haiti and the aid agencies working to meet their needs are unprecedented. The situation in Haiti before the earthquake was already very fragile. More than 70% of the population were living on less than $US2 per day. … Taking all this into account, it is clear that we have a long way to go to help older Haitians and their families get back on their feet. But we are committed to ensuring that our support for older people in Haiti will have a long term and meaningful impact.'

Our relief efforts have so far included providing food, shelter and aid packages to older people and their families. We have also helped to:

• Pay staff and provide equipment for one ward of a privately-run, state-owned hospital (CENSHOP) providing an emergency medical facility for older people. This provides 30 beds and access to laboratories and operating theatres
• Provide food, temporary shelter facilities, medical supplies and nursing care to eight older people’s care homes in Port-au- Prince, Petit Goave and Leogane. The most prominent of these has been the Municipal Nursing Home or Asile Communale which suffered significant damage in the earthquake
• Provide support and training to local organisations focussing on older people’s care, such as the Institute for the Study of Integrated Care (IPESI), which provided home care and training of carers. Its training facility was demolished during the earthquake but its surviving staff have been tracking older people at risk, registering them and providing food, well-being kits and temporary shelter materials.

In the long term, we will also work through local partner organisations and nursing homes to implement a home care scheme to provide outreach to older people as they and their families rebuild their homes or continue to live in the semi-permanent settlements being set up by the Haitian government.

We will also provide geriatric training for medical staff in government and privately run hospitals and nursing homes. And we will establish Older People’s Groups as a strong countrywide network to give people in later life a stronger voice so they may participate in relief efforts and ensure older people are not left out of recovery and rehabilitation responses.

A series of short videos showing what we – and other DEC members – have achieved, as well as the challenges facing them and the people of Haiti can be seen on the DEC's YouTube channel.