Around the World

Port-au-Prince/Léogâne/Cologne. ”Even now, three months after the quake the daily survival still is a matter of priority for many Haitians,” explains Beate Maass, Haiti project coordinator of Malteser International, the relief service of the Order of Malta for worldwide humanitarian aid. “After a period of relative stability, the security situation – unfortunately - has again changed for the worse. Thefts and robberies are on the increase and there have been several kidnappings,” she tells. more...

Islamabad/Cologne. Nearly a year since more than three million people had to flee from the military operations in the northwest of Pakistan, Malteser International, the relief service of the Order of Malta for worldwide humanitarian aid, together with the “Pakistan Humanitarian Forum” points out that the crisis is far from over. more...

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Port-au-Prince/Cologne. Prof. Dr. Klaus Runggaldier reports from the crisis region: „Yesterday we could successfully operate on a ten year old girl that had not been injured so much. For the seriously injured children, however, there is only little hope.” Since Sunday, the three Malteser International medical doctors have been working in the hospital “Francois de Sales” downtown in Port-au-Prince. According to Runggaldier, the situation is still difficult; nevertheless, it is increasingly possible to provide basic medical care. Thanks to the good networking of the native Haitian Malteser International colleagues the team now has at its disposal a jeep as well as local communications means. more...

Please find enclosed the Malteser International Relief Activity Report No. 1 www.orderofmaltacanada.org/ReliefActivity.pdf informing about the emergency relief activities for the people in Haiti.

Please use this Relief Activity Report for your own information and distribute it to the members of your association. Please feel also free to publish it on your association’s website. more...

Port au Prince/Duesseldorf/Cologne. The medical team headed by Malteser International emergency relief coordinator Dr. Georg Nothelle has left Duesseldorf airport via New York for Haiti today – 14 January - at 12.10 am. The scheduled route via Paris was cancelled at short notice due to a strike of the local air controllers. Nothelle is accompanied by two emergency doctors and anaesthetists and the head of the emergency rescue services of Malteser Germany. In Haiti the team will be strengthened by two medical experts of Malteser France as well as by two members of the US-associations of the Order of Malta.

In Santo Domingo the international team will be received by the Ambassador of the Order of Malta to Haiti and accompanied on its way to Port-au-Prince. Upon arrival in Haiti it will be the first taske of the team to collect information and coordinate its relief measures with the other relief organisations on the ground. And - of course - the team will immediately start to provide first aid and medical assistance. The mission of this first team is scheduled for one week; further teams are on stand-by. more...

Port au Prince/Cologne. – „Due to the soil erosion, our capital lacks a solid basement. The slums that were built on the hills were completely slipped off within the mudslides”, reports Eduard Aimé from Haiti. “Even the most solid buildings like the presidential palace, ministries or the cathedral were severely damaged”, Aimé continues.

At present, Malteser International is preparing the deployment of a medical team consisting of medical doctors and further medical experts from Germany and France in order to support local Malteser teams on the ground. “The colleagues in Haiti know very well that basic medical care and the provision of clean drinking water are matters of top priority now”, Ingo Radtke, Secretary General of Malteser International, explains. more...

Everyday at 8 a.m. we arrive at the railway station and plan how we reach as many people as possible in the trains”, reports Lakshmanan, HIV consultant of Malteser International’s local partner organisation “Centre of People´s Education” in South India where the organisation fights against the spread of the immune deficiency syndrome in the region of Tamil Nadu. Contact points for the HIV educators are train stations and trains that bring hundreds of day labourers – many of them illiterate - to the big cities. more...

“I should like to take this opportunity of my visit to your hospital, run by the Italian Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, to consign my Encyclical Spe Salvi to the whole Roman community, and in particular to those who, like you, are in direct contact with suffering and sickness.” Thus Benedict XVI in a momentous visit to the Order's San Giovanni Battista Hospital in Rome. The Grand Master, Frà Andrew Bertie, in greeting His Holiness, affirmed that "The sick are at the heart of our mission."

"Dear knights of the Order of Malta, dear doctors, nurses and volunteers who work in the Hospital," the Pontiff said, "you are called to provide an important service that calls for abnegation and a spirit of sacrifice. In each sick person may you know how to recognise and serve Christ Himself. Show Him, with your gestures and your words, the signs of His merciful love."

In this regard Benedict XVI praised the contribution made by the Order of Malta to the mission of the Church to be near to the suffering and he recalled how, from its beginning in 1113, this lay religious order of the Catholic Church has dedicated itself "to the care of the sick, especially the poor and marginalized."

Together with the Grand Master, the Sovereign Council and members of the Order, the patients, their families, staff and volunteers prayed at the Mass celebrated by His Holiness at the Hospital.

Among the highlights was the Pontiff's visit to the Reawakening Unit, where patients are treated in the recovery phase known as 'vegetal state'. It is one of the very few in Italy offering this most difficult and touching care. more...