http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122674038
85 Elderly Quake Survivors Await Death In Haiti
by The Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti January 17, 2010, 01:09 pm ET
The old lady crawls in the dirt, wailing for her pills. The elderly man lies motionless as rats pick at his overflowing diaper. There is no food, water or medicine for the 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home, just a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from the airport where a massive international aid effort is taking shape.
"Help us, help us," 69-year-old Mari-Ange Levee begged Sunday, lying on the ground with a broken leg and ribs. A cluster of flies swarmed the open fracture in her skull.
One man has already died, and administrator Jean Emmanuel said more would follow soon unless water and food arrive immediately.
"I appeal to anybody to bring us anything, or others won't live until tonight," he said, motioning toward five men and women who were having trouble breathing, a sign that the end was near.
The dead man was Joseph Julien, a 70-year-old diabetic who was pulled from the partially collapsed building and passed away Thursday for lack of food.
His rotting body lies on a mattress, nearly indistinguishable from the living around him.
With six residents killed in the quake, the institution now has 25 men and 60 women camped outside their former home. Some have a mattress in the dirt to lie on. Others don't.
Madeleine Dautriche, 75, said some of the residents had pooled their money to buy three packets of pasta, which the dozens of pensioners shared on Thursday, their last meal. Since there was no drinking water, some didn't touch the noodles because they were cooked in gutter water.
Dautriche noted that many residents wore diapers that hadn't been changed since the quake.
"The problem is, rats are coming to it," she said.
Old men and women lay camped outside their quake damaged nursing home in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. More than 100 elders are living outside the home with no food or care other than an occasional bath from two orderlies who remained to help.
Associated Press
An elderly woman begs for food from people passing by as she lays with other senior citizens outside their nursing home in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010i. More than 100 old men and women were living outside the home, that was damaged during Tuesday's earthquake, with no food or care other than an occasional bath from two orderlies who remained to help.
Associated Press
An old man lays on a bed outside his nursing home in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. More than 100 old men and women were living outside the home, that was damaged during Tuesday's earthquake, with no food or care other than an occasional bath from two orderlies who remained to help.
Associated Press
An old man is fed a few nuts from his nephew while lying outside his quake damaged nursing home in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. More than 100 old men and women were living outside the home, that was damaged during Tuesday's earthquake, with no food or care other than an occasional bath from two medical orderlies who remained to help.
Associated Press
An medical orderly waves flies off an old man asleep on the ground outside his nursing home in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. More than 100 old men and women were living outside the home, that was damaged during Tuesday's earthquake, with no food or care other than an occasional bath from two orderlies who remained to help.
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