10 November 2016 - Business View Caribbean
Opening
Lines
friendly spaces where vulnerable children and fami-
lies can receive psychosocial support and training 60
volunteers to staff them, and repairing 22 schools
and distributing school-in-a-box and early childhood
development kits so that children can resume their
learning as soon as possible.
UNICEF requires over $23 million through the end
of the year to meet children’s humanitarian needs
following the hurricane, including for the cholera re-
sponse. So far, it has received a mere $6 million.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told
reporters in Geneva that, according to the latest fig-
ures from the authorities in Haiti, Matthew has so
far caused 546 deaths and left 438 people injured.
He said that needs are vast, especially in the areas
of quality water, education, shelter, child protection,
health and nutrition. A total of 1.4 million people
are in need of humanitarian assistance, and an es-
timated 40 percent of them are children. The UN
emergency humanitarian appeal for $120 million is
far only 33 percent funded.
Haiti needs support to restore and rebuild its health
services at various levels, ranging from cholera
treatment centers to community health centers to
major hospitals, according to Dr Jean-Luc Poncelet,
the Pan American Health Organization/World Health
Organization (PAHO/WHO) representative in Haiti.
In the country’s south, “the government faces chal-
lenges in restoring health facilities in affected areas
and urgent repairs to restore functionality have been
identified,” he said.
In Sud Department, 28 percent of health facilities
sustained severe damage and eight percent are
closed, while in Grand’Anse, 43 percent of health
facilities were severely damaged and seven percent
are closed. Of the 74 cholera and acute diarrhea
treatment facilities in Haiti, 34 are fully functional,
while 40 sustained various levels of damage.
Restoring health services to a functional level re-
quires not only fixing structures, but providing elec-
tricity and water and sanitation, as well as helping
many health workers who themselves have been
severely affected by the hurricane’s destruction, ac-
