Local Doctor Starts Relief Efforts In Haiti

PALM DESERT – For five days, Doctor Raul Ruiz from Coachella, has lived in a small tent helping thousands in a city sized homeless camp.

He quickly came face to face with the horrors working in Port-Au-Prince’s General Hospital.

“Right across the street there was a nursing school that completely collapsed and I was told that the entire second year of nursing students was in it and died during the quake,” says Ruiz.

Since arriving, Ruiz’s team, headed by actor Sean Penn, delivered 50,000 pounds of supplies, including 4,000 water filters.

But, that’s only the beginning.

Ruiz and hundreds of other doctors still need the most basic medicines.

“Even though the number sounds large, in the whole scheme of things and the enormous need, it is still, it is still a drop in the bucket,” says Ruiz.

Now, that search and rescue efforts have ended, doctor’s are now trying to keep people alive despite gruesome injures.

Ruiz lives in homeless camp with 30,000 people many with untreated injuries.

There’s similar camps all over Haiti.

Medical teams are going around treating and transporting the injured.

“Going tent to tent with interpreters looking for the seriously ill. One day teams had set of dislocated hip that hadn’t been touched since the initial earthquake,” says Ruiz.

More help is on the way.

The Berger Foundation, based in Palm Desert, donated $1 million to Eisenhower Medical Center to be used for more supplies.

Ruiz says he will make sure it goes where it’s needed.

So, doctors can expect to see more boxes bearing the message “To the people of Haiti from the people of the Coachella Valley with love.”

“I’m proud of the Coachella Valley. I’m proud of the people that showed their compassion. I’m proud of all those that sent their prayers. I’m proud of those that have Haitian people in their minds,” says Ruiz.