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Haiti Update #2

Ready but Need More Funds to help Haiti

"There is a lot of work to do in Haiti and there is a big gap that no-one is addressing, one which will suit MiST perfectly.”

MiST have an opportunity to work with CHARIS a charity based in Haiti now for 2 years. They have an operating theatre for MiST with out patients relying on MiSTs’ offer of expertise in wound care.

It is an expertise lacking across the disaster area.

“The local [medical staffs] had no time to apply external fixation or medical care to the wounds, and patients were left outside hospitals with no care,” said surgical trainee and volunteer Ihab Boutros in Pakistan 2005.

We hope to deploy our available surgical teams immediately – and somehow will find a way to raise another £50,000 to enable a successful trip.

MiST have raised enough to deploy surgical teams plus most of the required specialist equipment, but traveling over to Haiti without an X-Ray machine would mean we would make the same mistakes that are being made throughout Haiti.

MiST implore you – help us buy an X-Ray machine ($80,000).
It sounds crazy…. Such devastation and we need an x-ray machine.

But one machine would diagnose complex crush injuries correctly, enabling medics to treat correctly, giving patients quality treatment… giving Haitian people access to quality of life.

The implications are massive. An estimated 250,000* people suffered one or many crush injuries, and after shocks continue to injure more.

This affects a considerable amount of the Haitian population.

This affects their long term life quality.

Please please help us in our balmy but crucial aim.

$80,000 = £52,000

* Quoted from Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127085542.htm

Haiti Need MiST Expertise

MiST surgeon volunteers encountered injuries such as this open fracture when they arrived at Al Sharif Eye Hospital in Pakistan after the earthquake. They implanted external fixators in most cases and performed multiple washouts and debridements for all patients.

MiST in Haiti

Update #1

Drs. Amer Shoaib and Salam Obaidi have been in Haiti assessing where and how best MiST can help. For regular news from MiST in Haiti please read our blog - (click 'read more').

MiST now have funds enough to roll into Haiti with medics, equipment and medicines. We are still seeking regular funds to sustain and develop our work. Please consider placing a monthly contribution to our fund.

One month and seven days after the earthquake and charities are visibly leaving. Dr. Salam Obaidi emphasized that Haiti is an incredibly poor country and needs increasing aid not decreasing aid. Problems such as stress, sanitation, lack of water and food, plus that of straining to cope with destruction and damage to physical selves and the environment are not decreasing.
With the rains starting to fall, and hurricane season due in early June - communicable diseases will be on the increase.

MiST in Haiti

"What we saw looked like a bomb site"

MiST Haiti Appeal

We need to raise £100,000.

Without immediate funds from the public MiST cannot purchase the required equipment. We have stocks of orthopedic equipment, but need to purchase anesthetics, monitors and ventilators.

MiST will bring teams of medical experts to Haiti. The first team arriving on 2nd February with successive teams taking over. Each team will stay for approximately 2 weeks, working all hours until the next team takes over.

“We hope to have an active presence in Haiti until the need stops”. Peter Naylor, Treasurer for MiST.

Please donate via our secure PayPal link above.

Haiti Appeal

Image:95775321/Joe Raedle/Staff/Courtesy of GettyImages

Gaza: Beneath the Bombs - UK Tour

The author of "Gaza: Beneath the Bombs" has begun a book tour. Sharyn will be hosted by Manchester PSC on Thursday January 14th 7pm, at Cross Street Chapel in the city centre, following on with other Manchester and UK-wide appearances. You can find out tour details here.

‘An honest, forthright account full of compassion and insight. It plunges the reader into Gaza.’- JEREMY HARDY

‘Moving and understated. … By sharing in the vulnerability of the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the crowded killing fields of the Gaza Strip, Sharyn Lock manages to humanise the inhuman. … Unforgettable.’- RICHARD FALK

read more ...

Download MiST Newsletter No.1! Winter 09/10

We've published our very first MiST newsletter, bringing you MiST news and reports over this very wintry Winter 09/10. It's in PDF format, 4 x A4 pages, so you can download it, print it out, and put it up on your nearest available noticeboard to share MiST with your friends and colleagues. Contact us if you have a good location for us to place some paper copies. But hurry, because we'll be bringing out another one come springtime... read more ...

Buy 2010 MiST Calendar!

Just what you need to start the year - a classic calendar of glowing oil paintings, some inspired by Gaza. You can see some of the paintings on MiST's facebook photo page.

Artist Aster was inspired to create these original images by the strength people all over the world find in themselves when facing disasters both natural and manmade. The cover picture is created by MiST's own director, Sohail Khan, and is an abstract painting of Gaza.

Please order your calendar by contacting Aster directly on emailasir AT gmail.com or texting him on 07789861292. They are £10 each, and the money made will be divided between MiST and the Shepherd Home Trust in India, which runs an orphanage founded by Aster.

Baroness Tonge praises MiST as part of her NHS "Grant Leave for Aid Work" Proposal, House of Lords

"Mr Khan and his team are part of Mobile International Surgical Teams, MiST, which was formed in 2005. I am honoured to be its patron. Its members will go to any part of the world following war or natural disasters, or simply when called upon to give training to other surgeons in countries less developed than our own...."