Fight compassion fatigue to help Chile quake victims
March 3, 2010
By Editorial Board
NEW — 1:30 p.m. March 3, 2010
The victims of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27 face an added danger beyond crumbling buildings or their need for food, water and medical care. That danger is compassion fatigue.
The world has given generously to Haiti after an earthquake devastated that country six weeks ago. Now, there is the danger that the international community won’t be there in Chile’s hour of need.
But we must respond with the same urgency.
Fortunately, the destruction in Chile was on a smaller scale, but the country and its people have suffered. Its building codes and its government were better prepared for the earthquake and the dozens of aftershocks.
Nonetheless, there was destruction far beyond a scale most of us have ever seen or care to imagine. In the city of Concepcion, a 15-story apartment building collapsed.
Already many of the same individuals and organizations who answered Haiti’s cry for help are making their way to Chile. Many of them must be exhausted, but they will have to put that aside.
Communities across the world must step forward to support them in their work.
Two earthquakes of such power might usually occur 10 years or more apart, but tremors don’t read timetables. And their victims’ needs are not diminished by timing.
Yet as we support the relief efforts in Chile, we must not let Haiti slip into the darkness of yesterday’s headlines. Thousands of people there remain homeless and in desperate need of help.
The world cannot give in to compassion fatigue now. We must shake its wearisome apathy from our shoulders and force ourselves to care about the people whose lives have been ripped apart.
Our support cannot put them back together as they were before the earthquakes, but it can give them a firm foundation to build new lives on.
How to help
All numbers are toll free calls.
World Vision: www.worldvision.org, or call 888-511-6443.
Mercy Corps: www.mercycorps.org, or call 888-256-1900.
Operation USA: www.opusa.org, or call 800-678-7255.
Medical Teams International: www.medicalteams.org, or call 800-959-4325.
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The fear that the American public will become saturated with catastropic news and not donate is NOT “Compassion Fatigue”. Compassion farigue happens to caregivers and disaster responders over time when their hearts wear out. The symptoms are similar to a severe stress reaction; including isolation, sleeplessness, depression and irritability. They need to learn to put themselves on their own care lists. Often it’s too late and they have left the field and or suffer from serious physical problems with stress.