Dr. Maxo Luma: "It Is a Very Strong Nation"

Voices of Haiti – Dr. Maxo Luma: “It is a Very Strong Nation”

 

[Voices of Haiti intro begins]

 

Patrick: It was kind of surreal

Loune: I was there just after the earthquake. You have all the aftershocks…

Dimitri: And I could see all the chaos and destruction.

Anany: Why I should continue to live if all this have to happen to me?

 

[Intro fades out]

 

 

Leslie:  Byenvini or welcome. I’m your host, Leslie Friday. Thank you for listening to Voices of Haiti, a Partners In Health podcast that shares the stories of our Haitian colleagues as they reflect on the January 12th 2010 earthquake.

Today, we hear from an infectious disease doctor who began working with Zanmi Lasante, as PIH is known in Haiti, in 2005. He has helped patients battle deadly diseases like tuberculosis and HIV and seen them recover—against all odds. Some odds, though, are hard to predict. Like when a massive earthquake will bring a nation to its knees.

 

Maxo:   It’s not magic. You cannot stop a, you know, natural disaster, uh, you,  it's very unpredictable, right? But what we can do, we can minimize, we can reduce the magnitude of every single natural disaster, if you have a strong healthcare system.

 

Leslie: That’s Dr. Maxo Luma. He’s currently the executive director of Partners In Health in Liberia. At the time of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, he was teaching courses within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, in Canada. You might think Maxo’s perspective on the earthquake is unique, or possibly even wrong, but stick with what he has to say.

 

Maxo: The earthquake did not kill people. What I'm trying to say um, is that all those people who died, it's like a quarter of a million people who died, more than another quarter of million you know, are left injured, handicapped after the earthquake, we cannot attribute all this to the earthquake. It was the system, the weakness of the system you know, that kill those people.

 

Leslie: As a direct result of the earthquake, more than 50 hospitals and health centers collapsed. Dozens of nurses and doctors died. This occurred within a public health system that was already struggling.

So who cares for the gravely injured when there are no first responders? How do you transport victims, when there are few ambulances? Where do you take patients when the nearest hospitals stand in ruins?

As Maxo says, a weak health system and overall infrastructural systems were the causes of death for thousands of Haitians.

That point became clearer—just one month later—when a larger, 8.8 earthquake struck Chile, spurring a devastating tsunami. In total, 500 people lost their lives.

This comparison is not meant to belittle what happened in Chile—all loss of life is tragic. But it is necessary when asking the question:

why were there such different outcomes between the earthquake in Haiti, and the dual natural disasters in Chile?

As Maxo says, the answer to this question doesn’t require magical knowledge. The answer…is that Chile, among other advantages, had a stronger public health system compared to Haiti.

 

Maxo:  After the earthquake, Haiti attracted a lot of attention from the international community, where they made a lot of promises, most of them were not kept, right? And for those who managed to, uh, commit or to keep their promises, they did it the wrong way. Because whether or not we believe it, it is of the responsibility of the government of the country to ensure the safety, you know of citizens, to ensure basic human rights, education, water, sanitation, healthcare, um, this is the ... this is the responsibility of the government of the country.

 

Leslie: But here’s the catch: the Haitian government received less than 1% of humanitarian aid, and less than 10% of recovery aid donated in the wake of the earthquake. The vast majority of funding—billions of dollars—flowed to private contractors, foreign-based nonprofit organizations, and the donors’ militaries responding to the disaster.

 

Maxo:  Now, when you choose not to give a dime, to that government at a moment where there was so much going on, you have contributed to the continuity of you know, how things are right now. I could give some examples because three days after the earthquake, I was there.

Leslie: Maxo heard the news while he was in Vancouver with his family. Days later, he was on the first available flight to Port-au-Prince.

Maxo:  I was so tired you know, flying from, from Vancouver, to New Jersey and then Haiti, the airport was all packed, we could not land; we went back to DR, to, to wait for a few you know, airplanes you know, to leave, so we could go back. I was so tired that I,I just wanted to sleep somewhere, and I just needed a bed. Everybody was sleeping outside, I decided to sleep inside until you know, I felt like my bed was shaking for real. I say, "well, maybe someone is under the bed you know, guarding something and stuff." Until I heard um, like all the people who were staying outside, it was somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 AM, they were like screaming. They will not come inside, but they almost like smack the door uh, for me uh, to come out. I say, "What's going on?" They say, "Uh, it is shaking again."

And then, I just run with like boxers, actually like you know, bare feet, and they say, "The door is shaking." And actually, it was like a 6 point something or 5.7, very close to the first one, it was a serious aftershock. And then you know, I spend more than 8 months um, there, managing, coordinating, cleanings for PIH in Haiti, um, until I went back uh, home to Canada.

 

Leslie: Maxo helped Zanmi Lasante respond to the medical and day-to-day needs of thousands of people across four camps for the displaced in Port-au-Prince. He and other Haitian clinicians provided care for as many as 15 hundred patients every day, for weeks on end, until he returned to Canada 8 months later.

That first night home, he said, he felt as if his house was shaking around him. It was post-traumatic stress. Clinically, he knew this.

But mentally, he couldn’t as easily shed the trauma of what he’d experienced. He also felt guilty for having a ticket out of Haiti, and for having survived the disaster in the first place.

 

Maxo: At least, every single person in the country lost a family member. Myself, I've lost two, my nephew and, and his dad. They did not manage to make it, to run when the thing was happening. I-I know there are people who are still, who are still actually um, suffering from, what happened.

Because I've met people um, who were like the only left you know, uh, from their family who wanted to just die. They say, "Wh- what's my, what's the point of me you know, being alive? I've lost everything, all my people or everybody who mattered to me, lost." So, but somehow, um, I think it is in our, you know, in in the culture of the country.

 

Leslie:  That’s to say, Haitians have experienced great loss before.

In the center of Port-au-Prince stands the statue of Neg Mawon,

a sculpture of a black man with shackles on his left ankle, a machete clasped in his right hand, and a conch shell raised to his lips to call others to join the revolt. He symbolizes the Haitian people’s independence and pride in forging the first free black nation.

             

 

Maxo: Despite, you know, the, the huge earthquake, you know, everything was shaking, all the ... you know, most important you know, um, buildings or official buildings in the country collapsed, Neg Mawon did not fall. Neg Mawon, Neg Mawon stood intact.

I think this actually speaks to the fact that it is a, it is a very strong um, a strong nation. There's something um, that keeps um, the nation strong and that's why I think it's a beautiful nation.

 

Leslie: Continue to learn and explore more stories about Zanmi Lasante and PIH by visiting pih-dot-o-r-g-backslash-haiti. Follow Voices of Haiti on Spotify, and NOW, you can subscribe on Apple Podcast. As always, thank you for listening and talk to you again on the next episode.

 

[End]