Dr. Maxo Luma: ”It Is a Very Strong Nation”

Many Haitians returned to their home country to help respond to the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. Maxo was among them, and stayed for eight months working in camps for the displaced. He shares his perspective on why the earthquake was so destructive, and how it has affected him personally.

Transcript

Host, Leslie Friday: Byenvini or welcome. I’m your host, Leslie Friday. Thank you for listening to Voices of Haiti, a Partners In Health podcast that shares the stories of our Haitian colleagues as they reflect on the January 12th 2010 earthquake.

Today, we hear from an infectious disease doctor who began working with Zanmi Lasante, as PIH is known in Haiti, in 2005. He has helped patients battle deadly diseases like tuberculosis and HIV and seen them recover—against all odds.

Some odds, though, are hard to predict. Like when a massive earthquake will bring a nation to its knees.

Maxo Luma: It’s not magic. You cannot stop a natural disaster. It's very unpredictable, right? But what we can do, we can minimize, we can reduce the magnitude of every single natural disaster, if you have a strong healthcare system ...

Host, Leslie Friday: That’s Dr. Maxo Luma, who’s currently the executive director of Partners In Health in Liberia. But at the time of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, he was teaching courses within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. You might think Maxo’s perspective on the earthquake is unique, or possibly even wrong. But stick with what he has to say.

Maxo Luma: The earthquake did not kill people. What I'm trying to say is that all those people who died, it's like a quarter of a million people who died, more than another quarter of million you know, are left injured, you know handicapped after the earthquake, we cannot attribute all this to the earthquake. It was the system, the weakness of the system you know, that kill those people.

Host, Leslie Friday: As a direct result of the earthquake, more than 50 hospitals and health centers collapsed. Dozens of nurses and doctors died. This occurred within a public health system that was already struggling.

So…who cares for the gravely injured when there are no first responders?

How do you transport victims, when there are few ambulances?

Where do you take patients when the nearest hospitals stand in ruins?

As Maxo says, a weak health system AND overall infrastructural systems were the causes of death for thousands of Haitians. That point became clearer—just one month later--when a larger, 8.8 earthquake struck Chile, spurring a devastating tsunami.

All told, 500 people lost their lives.

This comparison is not meant to belittle what happened in Chile--all loss of life is tragic.

But it is necessary when asking the question: why were there such different outcomes between the earthquake in Haiti, and the dual natural disasters in Chile?

As Maxo says, the answer to this question doesn’t require magical knowledge.

The answer…is that Chile, among other advantages, had a stronger PUBLIC health system compared to Haiti.

Maxo Luma: After the earthquake, Haiti attracted a lot of attention from the international community, where they made a lot of promises, most of them were not kept, right? And for those who managed to commit or keep their promises, they did it the wrong way. Because whether or not we believe it, it is of the responsibility of the government of the country to ensure safety of citizens, to ensure basic human rights, education, water, sanitation, healthcare. This is the responsibility of the government of the country.

Host, Leslie Friday: But here’s the catch: the Haitian government received less than 1% of humanitarian aid,

and less than 10% of recovery aid donated in the wake of the earthquake. The vast majority of funding—billions of dollars—flowed to private contractors, foreign-based nonprofit organizations, and the donors’ militaries responding to the disaster.

Maxo Luma: Now, when you choose not to give a dime, to that government at a moment where there was so much going on, you have contributed to the continuity of how things are right now. I could give some examples because three days after the earthquake, I was there.

Host, Leslie Friday: Maxo heard the news while he was in Vancouver with his family. Days later, he was on the first available flight to Port-au-Prince.

Maxo Luma: I was so tired you know, flying from, from Vancouver, to New Jersey and then Haiti, the airport was all packed, we could not land; we went back to DR, to, to wait for a few airplanes to leave, so we could go back. I was so tired that I,I just wanted to sleep somewhere, and I just needed a bed.

Everybody was sleeping outside, I decided to sleep inside until I felt my bed was shaking for real. I say, "Well, maybe someone is under the bed you know, guarding something and stuff." Until I heard all the people who were staying outside, it was somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 AM, they were like screaming. They will not come inside, but they almost like smack the door uh, for me uh, to come out. I say, "What's going on?" They say, "Uh, it is shaking again.

And then, I just run with boxers and bare feet, and they say, "The door is shaking." And actually, it was like 6 point something or 5.7, very close to the first one, it was a serious aftershock. And then you know, I spend more than 8 months there, managing, coordinating, cleanings in Haiti, until I went back to Canada.

Host, Leslie Friday: Maxo helped Zanmi Lasante respond to the medical and day-to-day needs of thousands of people across four camps for the displaced in Port-au-Prince. He and other Haitian clinicians provided care for as many as 15 hundred patients every day, for weeks on end, until he returned to Canada 8 months later.

That first night home, he said, he felt as if his house was shaking around him.

It was post-traumatic stress. Clinically, he knew this.

But mentally, he couldn’t as easily shed the trauma of what he’d experienced.

He also felt guilty for having a ticket out of Haiti, and for having survived the disaster in the first place.

Maxo Luma: At least, every single person in the country lost a family member. Myself, I've lost two, my nephew and, and his dad. They did not manage to make it, to run when the thing was happening. So, um, I mean, really um, as ... and, and I know there are people who are still, who are still actually um, suffering from, from, from, from, from what happened.

Because I've met people um, who were like the only left you know, uh, from their family who wanted to just die. They say, "Wh- what's my, what's the point of me you know, being alive? I've lost everything, all my people or everybody who mattered to me, lost." But somehow, um, I think it is in our, you know, in in the culture of the country,

Host, Leslie Friday: That’s to say, Haitians have experienced great loss before.

In the center of Port-au-Prince stands the statue of Neg Mawon,

a sculpture of a black man with shackles on his left ankle,

a machete clasped in his right hand,

and a conch shell raised to his lips to call others to join the revolt.

He symbolizes the Haitian people’s independence and pride in forging the first free black nation.

Maxo Luma: Despite you know, you know, uh, um, the, the, the huge earthquake, you know, everything was shaking, all the ... you know, most important you know, um, buildings or official buildings in the country collapsed, Neg Mawon did not fall. Neg Mawon, Neg Mawon stood intact.

So, I think that's, I think it's yeah, I think this actually uh, speaks to the fact that it is a, it is a very strong um, a strong nation. There's something um, that keeps um, the nation strong and that's why I think it's a beautiful nation.

Host, Leslie Friday: Continue to learn and explore more stories about Zanmi Lasante and PIH by visiting pih-dot-org-backslash-haiti. Follow Voices of Haiti on Spotify, and NOW, you can subscribe on Apple Podcast.

As always, [pause] thank you for listening and talk to you again on the next episode.

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