In the aftermath of the floods that ravaged southeast Haiti last May, the Adventist Relief and Development Agency (ADRA) and the International Behavioral Health Trauma Team from Loma Linda University met in Port-au-Prince from June 28 to July 3 to train local medical professionals and volunteers in aiding disaster victims. The general public was also given an opportunity to attend the training. Reports say the floods killed 1,700 in the province of Mapou and surrounding communities, and left more than 6,000 families homeless.

"We wanted to provide training to medical professionals in the area and help coordinate a response trauma team for the recent flood victims," says Wally Amundson, ADRA director for the church in Inter-America. "We also wanted to create a national list of professionals that will intervene in the future," he adds.

Over 60 local medical professionals, including the Minister of Health, United Nations workers, and other non-government agency employees and volunteers showed up for the two-day training workshop and two days of clinical work in Mapou, Thiotte, and Fonds-Verrettes. The group was comprised of psychiatrists, nurses, pastors, lawyers, businessmen, students, office secretaries and more.

William Murdoch, M.D., Medical director for Loma Linda University’s Behavioral Medicine Center and team leader at the training in Haiti, was accompanied by three professionals from the University to head the training.

"We focused specifically on crisis intervention, assessing specific trauma signs and symptoms, active and supporting listening techniques and identifying symptoms for further referral for acute cases of trauma," says Dr. Murdoch.

Dr. Murdoch says it is important for victims to continue with normal life activities such as eating and sleeping after a traumatic experience caused by disaster. If victims don’t receive crisis intervention, "they may lose the ability to concentrate, it interferes with inter-personal relationship, depression may set and it can lead to other physical problems."

"It is important for victims to receive the basic needs to be able to survive, as well as the psychological relief to alleviate trauma that a disaster may cause," says Amundson, "if the two aren’t together, there is still a sense of desperation."

Part of the clinical training involved dividing medical professionals and volunteers into groups and sending them to southeast Haiti to meet with flood victims. Other clinical work was done through referrals by shelter leaders of victims that needed further counseling.

"Never before had we impacted a nation as part of a mental health intervention in a crisis disaster program," says Dr. Murdoch. "It was a wonderful educational and clinical experience... to empower local professionals to start doing something in their communities," he adds.

On Friday, the groups reconvened in Port-au-Prince and were debriefed on the clinical work they had done.

"Each group presented the data and we discussed how training was implemented, identified mental services in that community, and discussed referral follow-up through government agencies among the professionals who participated," says Dr. Murdoch.

Dr. Ghislaine Adrien, a director for the Ministry of Health in Haiti, who participated in the training, made a commitment to develop and establish a list generated by professionals and volunteers as part of a national crisis intervention team.

In addition, ADRA, in conjunction with the Adventist Church leadership in Haiti, invited pastors from different denominations in Port-au-Prince to a seminar on crisis intervention. Over 40 ministers met at the Le Plaza Hotel on Sabbath to learn how they can immediately assess victims in distress. Dr. Murdoch led the seminar and stressed that ministers are usually the primary health professional available to victims in devastating situations.

"This was a huge help for the people in Haiti," says Amundson. "We triggered the highest level of government in a cooperate way. We had reporters in our training sessions for five days reporting on the work of ADRA and what the trauma team was providing for the victims," he adds.

As for assistance to the flood-devastated areas, Amundson says that provisions had been made for delivery of energy drinks to victims, but because roads into the area had been damaged or are still covered with debris, delivery had not been possible until recently. Other non-government organizations, along with the United Nations, had been making helicopter deliveries to affected areas.

The partnership between ADRA and the LLU’s International Behavioral Health Trauma Team is part of a pre-funded agreement with the Inter-American Division to provide psychological debriefing for the victims of natural or man-made disasters that may occur in the territory of the Division. So far the LLU has provided on-site crisis intervention in the territory of Inter-America to flood victims in the Dominican Republic, also devastated by last May's floods, and provided educational training in crisis intervention to ADRA directors throughout the IAD in Venezuela, Curacao, and Colombia. Also, the trauma team has provided crisis intervention in other countries such as Guam.

ADRA Inter-America is committed to providing food supplies and coordinating with the United Nations and other non-government organizations to assist the affected people in Haiti and will continue dialogue with the country’s Ministry of Health on this project.

For more information on Loma Linda University Adventist Health Center programs, go to www.llu.edu [Editor: Libna Stevens for APD]