Civil–Military Collaboration in the Initial Medical Response to the Earthquake in Haiti

Critically Assessing the Haiti Earthquake Response and the Barriers to Quality Orthopaedic Care

“…Interview themes and the observed disaster management scores support the importance of prior training and experience for volunteer surgeons who face mass casualties and injuries in a disaster [25,50]. Training might have directly contributed to differences observed in storage security and equipment distribution, or indirectly led to logistical assistance if trained volunteers could more easily collaborate with the military [2,8]. Collaborating with the military for equipment requiring immediate setup could have contributed to the greater difficulty observed with equipment installation for the trained respondents.…”

“…These contacts can facilitate relief coordination. Finally, despite communication challenges regarding patient transfer to and from military vessels, short-term military involvement (19 occurrences) facilitated equipment, security, and patient management, which was helpful for many volunteers [2,8]. Therefore, civil-military collaboration, throughout disaster training, planning, and response phases, could augment resource distribution and care in future relief efforts.…”

Disaster assistance: determinants of countries around the world contributing towards disaster donations

“…Faced with a crisis of enormous proportions, China was very quick in accepting humanitarian assistance (Paik, 2011) but the analysis by Haojun et al (2011) of the on-site rescue operations in the aftermath of the Wenchuan Earthquake reveals inadequate field resources, poor first-aid knowledge and inept management by all responsible departments. The civil-military cooperation in the initial medical response to the Haiti earthquake had a lot of challenges too, including dealing with the chaos and profound social disruption in the absence of clear communication channels between relief workers but also to family members and particularly children separated from their parents (Auerbach et al, 2010). The challenge of providing effective aid with highly limited resources under extreme time pressure justifies the calls for a global information network (GIN) that is capable of retrieving and fusing data into useful information in order to the support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief by international agencies (Mak et al, 1999).…”

Actorness and effectiveness in international disaster relief: The European Union and United States in comparative perspective

“…At an early stage of the relief effort, the US military helped to provide security for UN personnel in Haiti, supplied medical services and food to the Haitian people, took over certain critical government functions (such as control of the Port-au-Prince airport and maintenance of law and order), and attempted to improve the environment for international humanitarian work. 77 Civil-military cooperation was also facilitated by the Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center (HACC), set up by the Task Force-Haiti at the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince to integrate the military with other relevant stakeholders, including USAID and the United Nations. At the same time, US troops in Haiti were subject to controversy in some quarters.…”