Haiti awards scheme will go on
Issue: 21 July 2010
Author: Sally Priestley
The funding awards set up by the CSP for physiotherapists working in Haiti have kick-started a continuing programme of support for disaster volunteers.
Following the earthquake in Haiti in January, which the government there estimated killed up to 230,000 people and injured 300,000, the CSP set up an awards programme to help volunteer physiotherapists with their expenses.
The first round of awards, worth £5,000, has now been confirmed and the successful applicants given their funding. A total of £4,000 went to members working for the Crumden Foundation, an organisation that helps impoverished people in Haiti.
Angela Hill, who worked at the Haiti hospital and received £1,000, said she had received updates on the patients she had helped care for and all were doing well. ‘What an amazing transformation, as previously no one with a spinal cord injury in Haiti had ever survived,’ she said.
CSP Council chair Ann Green said the decision had been made to set up similar funding programmes. ‘We see this as an ongoing commitment to supporting physiotherapists working for emergency relief charities,’ she said.
‘For people injured in major disasters, rehabilitation is crucial and it’s a long-term process that can take months or even years. It’s important we support physios by helping to send them out to foreign countries after the initial emergency relief workers have gone home.’
‘Our volunteers have kept me well informed about their work in Haiti with emails and photos, and it’s been very moving and humbling. It’s made me really proud that physiotherapy is playing such a key role in improving the outcomes of the people there,’ Ann Green added.
Meanwhile, the World Confederation for Physical Therapy has issued a new appeal for physios to work and volunteer in Haiti, in the prosthetic clinic at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles. For details of both the paid position and the volunteer roles, interested members should email Shaun Cleaver at scleaver@hashaiti.org or go to the Confederation’s website, www.wcpt.org for more information
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