The first element of Team Rubicon was made up of former military medics and firefighters. They carried their own tents, food, and gear, enough to last for a week. Being first, they lacked equipment and meds, especially narcotics, to handle many cases that they saw. Only when the second element arrived, a week later, did the team have the needed meds and equipment.

Take Home: Have a relationship with a supply chain that will provide the needed meds, including narcotics, on short notice.

Team Rubicon wisely committed from the beginning to publishing their activities on the web, thus raising much needed cash in a very short period. But their initial response was done out of their own cash. Regardless of what VISA says in their advertisements, banks and ATMs were not functioning during the disaster. During the initial days of the deployment the team routinely spent up to $1000/day on a variety of unforeseen needs. Getting home was another problem. While the military opened up humanitarian flights and other NGOs operated flights, Team Rubicon had a logistics person working this issue every day.

Take Home: Team members must have access to and be willing to carry large sums of cash. You must also reserve cash and a plan for getting home. Continue Reading>>

 

The Haiti Experience: Delivering the Goods

 

Since the 1970s, my employer, the Medical Benevolence Foundation, has supported Hopital Ste. Croix in Leogane, a city just 35 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. So when the earthquake struck that exact region, we rushed to put together a supply delivery. Between MBF, the Brother’s Brother Foundation and various local businessmen, I was able to coordinate three separate medical supply deliveries totaling 65,000 lbs. and worth more $100 million.

I arrived in Port-au-Prince on the evening of Jan. 18th with some government officials. The plane was unloaded but we were unable to depart the airport because of security issues. By then, supplies were in high demand and Haitians were desperate. Numerous trucks were being hijacked or raided as they were driven through the streets. Consequently, I was forced to guard the supplies on the tarmac through the night and secured a dump truck and armed personnel the following day. Finally, I departed the airport at 3:30pm and arrived in Leogane at 5:00pm. Along the route, we saw cracks in the road, buildings in rubble, people living in makeshift tents and an increased foul odor. The hospital was still standing but was damaged and considered too unsafe. The nursing school suffered a few cracks but was stable and had served as the only “health care facility” since the day of the earthquake. When I arrived, 5,000 people were already residing on the campus. Their tents consisted of blankets, cardboard, pieces of wood, and scraps of corrugated tin. Measuring approximately 10 feet x 10 feet, each one housed 5-6 people. Continue reading>>