Haiti Dishonoring the Dead?; Chaos Over Food in Haiti
COOPER: Take a look at these images, what a lot of Port-au- Prince looks like, two weeks after the quake, even before the quake hit. Haiti's medical system was really overwhelmed with too-few doctors and other medical professionals. And now the next generation of doctors in Haiti is in limbo. The quake destroyed all the medical schools in Port-au-Prince, stranding students midway through their studies. Dr. Sanjay Gupta look into that problem.</s>SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So you would have been in class that day, but you weren't. If you had been in class, I think everybody probably would have died.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): But they very much lived, and now they have all the vitality of youth. Ricardo and Paul-Robert. They're best friends. They have matching bags, inseparable. Now, they're on their way to being Haiti's future healers. (on camera) The way it works is you go to primary school. Then you go to secondary school. And then the very best students of all go to medical school for seven years. Paul-Robert was in his fifth year. He was this close to being the first person in his family to ever becoming a doctor when this all happened. That's where you used to sit?</s>PAUL-ROBERT DERENONCOURT, TRAINING TO BE DOCTOR IN HAITI: Yes.</s>GUPTA: Right over there.</s>DERENONCOURT: On the other side.</s>GUPTA: When you look at your school now, what are you going to do? What is your plan?</s>DERENONCOURT: hen I see my medical school cut up, it's a bad thing for us.</s>GUPTA: What kind of doctor do you want to be?</s>DERENONCOURT: I want to be an internist.</s>GUPTA: He would be one of fewer than 2,000 doctors in the entire country of nine million people. (on camera) That's the only thing that's still standing, is -- is the front wall over there.</s>DERENONCOURT: Yes. One of the things that.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): Many would look at Paul-Robert and say he's lucky. His mother survived the earthquake, siblings, as well. But now it is his very future that hangs in the balance. (on camera) So what will you do? What are you going to do next year? What are you going to do the year after that?</s>DERENONCOURT: First, I'll be in -- I will -- I'm going to spend my time to see what I can do for the country.</s>GUPTA: So you're saying many of the medical schools here in Haiti are destroyed or broken?</s>DERENONCOURT: Yes.</s>GUPTA: So you may have to leave your country?</s>DERENONCOURT: Maybe, I don't know.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): That's pretty bad news, considering how poor medicine was to begin with here in Haiti. (on camera) Here's a number that sort of surprised me. Even under typical circumstances, Haiti only graduates 80 medical doctors a year, every single year. Think about that. In a country of nine million people, giving Haiti one of the lowest physician-to-patient ratios anywhere in the world. And with this, obviously those numbers get a lot worse. (voice-over) But for the time being, there is a lot of compassion here. Doctors from all over the world come to help. (on camera) What happens when they leave?</s>DERENONCOURT: If they leave, I think it will be very difficult for us.</s>GUPTA (voice-over): But what we know is eventually Haiti's medical care and really Haiti's future will fall squarely on the shoulders of these kids, kids like Ricardo and Paul-Robert.</s>COOPER: I had no idea there were so -- I mean, I knew it was under staffed for medical care, but I mean, what was it, 2,000 doctors in a country of 9 million people?</s>GUPTA: It's unbelievable. I mean, it is one of the lowest physician-to-patient ratios in the world. Only about 2 percent of people actually finish secondary school here, as well. I mean, that's what happens when so much of the country is impoverished. People are getting into trade labor early on in life and simply not finishing school.</s>COOPER: And what about international doctors? Can they help with this?</s>GUPTA: Yes. They certainly can help. There's a significant number of doctors who will leave Haiti, go train somewhere else, and come back. In fact, a couple of doctors I met this week, these two general surgery twins actually went to France. They trained there. Very well trained surgeons. They wanted to come back and live in Haiti. But still, there's just simply not enough doctors. And what's happened here is that not only has the number of hospitals gone down, but the likelihood of creating a new generation of doctors from Haiti itself is really very limited, and I don't know how you solve that problem for sure. I mean, it's amazing.</s>COOPER: You're not going to have a new generation of doctors, and yet, you are going to have a new generation of patients in need, of amputees, of -- of orphans. I mean, the societal structure is going to change drastically.</s>GUPTA: Demand has gone way up. Supply has gone way down. I think, if the international aid can make some sort of commitment -- this is something you and I talked about quite a bit. There is a venting of compassion going on right now. People will stick around for the next month or so.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>GUPTA: But because of what we're talking about, that need is going to be there for a very long time.</s>GUPTA: All right, Sanjay. Appreciate it. Thanks, Sanjay. Still ahead, we have some good news about Monley, the 5-year-old boy, who he was rescued from the rubble after his uncle says eight days. We're been following his story closely. A new development in that ahead. And Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's office was allegedly targeted by a conservative activist and three accomplices. The FBI says they posed as telephone repairmen, pretending to manipulate the phone system. Joe Johns is looking into that, ahead.