By Carl Williams, Direct Relief Japan Recovery Coordinator While on a return trip through the broken and washed away city of Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture to meet with two nongovernmental organizations Direct Relief supports, I saw a familiar house on the other side of a huge ship grounded among immense piles of debris. It was a two-story house, which I remembered
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This is a personal “From the Field” story by Direct Relief Employee Jenny Hutain, Emergency Response Manager. September 11 marks the six-month anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. As we reach this milestone in the recovery process, Floyd Mori (Executive Director, Japanese American Citizens League), Bhupi Singh (Direct Relief’s COO/CFO), Carl Williams (Direct Relief’s Japan Disaster Relief Coordinator), and I
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This is a personal, From The Field story by Andrew McCalla, Direct Relief’s Emergency Response Manager. We arrived at the small medical clinic in Petit Trou de Nippes about five hours after we left Port-au-Prince that morning. The distance is only 75 miles but the unpaved roads, traffic, and small lakes and rivers we had to drive through to get
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Aberdeen Women’s Center, Freetown, April 21 We hope that Act Three never arrives. We work hard in Acts One and Two – training and equipping midwives and improving emergency obstetric care – so that mothers can experience a safe pregnancy and the health of their newborn. But at present time, we cannot draw the curtain after only two acts, and
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Lindsey Pollaczek Medical Research Center, Tonkolili and Bo Districts, April 19-20 About 15 percent of all deliveries will be complicated and will require emergency obstetric care. Many complicated cases can be managed at a lower level facility if the skilled birth attendant is trained in the management of basic emergency cases and has the tools they need to do their
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By Lindsey Pollaczek, Program Officer Sierra Leone has one of the highest reported maternal death rates in the world. In 2005, the maternal mortality ratio was 2,100 deaths per 100,000 live births and a woman’s lifetime risk of dying due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth was 1 in 8. Long distances to health facilities, the cost of health services,
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