Hi Linda,
Yes, I was part of the relief effort in that I assisted in a small way with
the organisation of the response and media management (press releases etc).
I took part in some of the Haiti Nutrition Cluster teleconferences (more on
the Cluster at
http://oneresponse.info/Disasters/Haiti/Nutrition/Pages/default.aspx ) where
the issue was raised. There was a lot of confusion about what was happening
because these people had not heard of the IMBP before. The donation had been
refused but IMBP was tenacious in finding somewhere that would accept it.
UNICEF was being inundated with women offering their expressed breastmilk
and it took many hours in trying to deal with that issue as a result of
reports of the IMBP donation (which I believe was also not used because the
Cluster asked that it not). I also spoke directly with the infant feeding
specialist contracted to manage infant feeding in Haiti about how having to
manage this issue took away from the wider management of the infant feeding
emergency response. No biased sources there! UNICEF recently organised an
infant and young child feeding in emergencies training meeting in the
Philippines at which I was a presenter and again this issue was raised. If
IMBP seeks to donate breastmilk in any future emergency then they will be
doing so knowing that their donation will cause more harm than good (unless
of course the emergency is in the US in which case it could well do good).
Karleen Gribble
Australia


-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2010 11:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Haiti relief

Karleen - were you part of the relief effort in Haiti or did you just hear
about the chaos from a biased source?

Linda Glynn IBCLC
South Africa


Date:    Thu, 2 Dec 2010 16:34:43 +1100
From:    Karleen Gribble <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Sustainability answered

And just to remind....the whole issue of US donated banked human milk being
sent to Haiti caused chaos and confusion in the emergency response and
detracted from the relief effort. 
Karleen Gribble
Australia

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