Haiti Loses Its U.S. Lifeboat
This story was co-published with The Daily Beast.
The U.S. Navy's vast hospital ship, the Comfort, departed Haiti Wednesday and is due back to its home port of Baltimore this weekend. In the harbor off of Port-au-Prince, its gleaming white topsides accented with red crosses have been a conspicuous symbol of U.S. generosity since the country's devastating earthquake.
But for 11 days before it departed, as some hospitals on the ground in Haiti overflowed with patients, no inpatients with earthquake injuries were treated … more…
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Dr. Sheri Fink has reported on health, medicine and science in the U.S. and from every continent except Antarctica. She was a frequent contributor to the public radio newsmagazine PRI’s “The World,” covering the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and international aid in development, conflict and disaster settings. Her articles have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Discover and Scientific American.
Fink's book, War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (Public Affairs, 2003), won the American Medical Writer's Association special book award and was a finalist for the Overseas Press Club and PEN Martha Albrand awards. Fink received her M.D. and Ph.D. from Stanford, and worked with humanitarian aid organizations in more than a half dozen emergencies in the U.S. and overseas. She has taught at Harvard, Tulane and the New School. Most recently Fink was the recipient of a Kaiser Media Fellowship in Health from the Kaiser Family Foundation and she is currently a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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