Haiti Earthquake

Photo: Karen Farrell (c)2010

Karen Farrell is a midwife and a Scientology Volunteer Minister who lives in New England. When she heard about the Haiti earthquake on January 12, her first thought was that she needed to help. Four days later she was in Port-au-Prince with the medical and disaster relief team of doctors and nurses from the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad, paramedics and Volunteer Ministers who boarded a flight in New York on January 16, chartered by the Church of Scientology to take medical personnel and supplies to Haiti.

Organization: Volunteer Ministers arrange transport of supplies and its distribution.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers are serving in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, providing skilled logistical support to aid the earthquake recovery. Supported by individuals and groups in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and elsewhere, Volunteer Ministers provide organizational support to medical teams, enabling the doctors and nurses to treat the injured. 

Dr. Phil Show of 26 January 2010: Interview with doctors of the University of Miami hospital tent in Port au Prince, Haiti. The helpers working with the patients (in the yellow shirts) are Scientology Volunteer Ministers.

To date, the Church of Scientology has sponsored charter flights that have brought more than 300 medical personnel and 100 Scientology Volunteer Ministers to help Haiti recover. We just received the first film tapes from one of the Volunteer Ministers who is following the groups' trips and actions with a camera. Below is a summary of the VM's actions in last two weeks since the earthquake.

Doctors Without Borders setting up an inflatable hospital. (Photo: Medicines Without Frontiers, msf.org)

Two weeks since the disaster hit Haiti, many relief organizations have arrived and set up temporary facilities to help those who were injured during the earthquake.

All patients of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince -- including delivering moms -- are being treated on the street until the danger of new earthquakes can be ruled out.

We got up at 5:45am to get ready to go to the hospital. Our ride was a little local  bus with no windows and a very stale smell. After a 45-minute ride we get to the hospital finally, all sweaty and already tired.  But as soon as we get there we find another problem.  All our patients were gone because during the night someone said there was going to be another earthquake and so they just  rolled all the beds away from the building, with the patients in them! It took us a couple of hours to find them and bring them back to one place.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers delivering supplies to a hospital tent

The Volunteers have done many food distribution trips with military escort. They found that Haitian population is not aggressive but friendly and disciplined, and generally there are no street fights or mobs. In the past days Volunteer Ministers delivered 1.5 crates of Military Rations (MREs) and the equivalent number of water and radios.

Nicole in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Update report from our Scientology Volunteer Ministers on the ground!

Volunteer Minister Mike: has been assigned to a medical team that gives tetanus shots to all the patients at the General Hospital and the field hospitals around Port-au-Prince.

Volunteer Minister Michaela sent us an email giving a glipmse of what it is like there and what she and the other volunteers are doing: