Tough Choices to Improve Haiti’s Emergency Response Network

Hundreds or even thousands of lives could be saved every year by improving the ambulance network, or by training a cadre of paramedics and ensuring that community volunteers, traditional midwives, and teachers are taught first aid techniques, according to new research. 

Bjorn Lomborg discusses the research wich examines options which include setting up an urban ambulance network, setting up a nationwide ambulance network, or training community members and paramedics in first aid skills.

Hundreds or even thousands of lives could be saved every year by improving the ambulance network, or by training paramedics and first aid volunteers, according to new research for Haiti Priorise.

In Haiti in 2013 and 2014, more than half-a-million accidents and emergencies resulted in 9000 deaths. Fewer than two percent were attended by free ambulances.

Improving the emergency response system is a challenge for many developing nations. Trauma patients are six-times more likely to die in low-income countries than in rich ones.

Read more on Huffington post.  Lire l'article en français au Le Nouvelliste.