Search

Doctors without Borders has facilities in many countries already established for humanitarian aid. For instance, they had been in Haiti since 1991, so their assistance in 2010 was aided by their already established position there. In that case they upped their projects within the country in response to the disaster.

The personal stories of the event, especially of the one paramedic whose name I didn't catch (Hispanic, Female). The emotional tellings of the events were incrediably visceral. I cannot conceive a scenario worse than what they had to deal with. 

-“…since the era in which demand for foreign labor made immigration a social necessity seem so remote, the immigrant’s body was entirely legitimized through its function as an instrument of production, the performance of which was interrupted by illness or accident.” – Succinctly captures modern views of illness of foreigners.

-Unless his presence constitutes a threat to public order, any foreigner habitually resident in France whose health is such that he requires medical treatment the lack of which could lead to exceptionally serious consequences, and provided that he is effectively unable to receive appropriate treatment in his country of origin, will be granted a temporary residence permit validated ‘for private and family life.’” Ordinance of November 2, 1945; modified on May 11, 1998 to bring into line with the European Convention of Human Rights

-“Should we accept ‘getting our hands dirty’ by agreeing to work with the immigrants’ service of the prefect’s office on the difficult issue of deportations?” asked Charles Candillier, a medical officer in the Seine-Saint-Denis Directorate of Healthy and Social Welfare, in an internal memo. His answer is crystal clear: “Although we recognize the ethical ambiguities of the situation, we did agree, on the grounds that our intervention could only be beneficial in helping to prevent arbitrary explusions.”

It creates a history and a better undestanding of the events that affected so many people on the East coast. It also compares the two storms to exhibit in both cases there were things we could have done better.