"They pulled her out early this morning. She was barely responding, she had wounds all over her body, and maggots. It's very unusual." – DR VLADIMIR LAROUCHE, a Haitian-American doctor from New York working at PaP General Hospital, tells of the rescue of an 84-year-old woman after 10 days under a wrecked building.
"We have many patients coming in where wounds have not been covered properly or at all and have become infected. The only option sometimes is to amputate," – ROBERTO FELIZ, an anaesthetist at a makeshift hospital in the UN base in Port-au-Prince.
" We are talking about thousands of amputations, and maybe half of the people who have been amputated have several limbs amputated." – DR MIRTA ROSES, director of the Pan American Health Organisation.
"People don't want to go out of the hospitals. And also their relatives don't want to go out of the hospitals." – DR ROSES.
"I've never seen anything like this – infected wounds full of larvae. I did my first amputation with three forceps, five scissors and a scalpel, without water, and just a flashlight to illuminate the injury." – JACQUES LORBLANCHES, a surgeon with Doctors of the World.
"I know those docs have had no choice, but amputation is a form of failure. It means you haven't been able to treat people in time." – DR DARIO GONZALEZ, a medical rescue worker from New York.
" It's very difficult out there . . . We're doing triage on the streets." – ATAUL AZIZ, field operations manager with British charity Humanity First.
"I'm alone here, and we have many emergency cases." – GEORGETTE SERGILLIES, (41), a trainee nurse at Port-au-Prince's General Hospital.
" There are no doctors, no surgeons. I was supposed to get delivery this morning of medical supplies from abroad, but they never arrived. Many people have suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries. By any stretch of the imagination it is going to be incredibly difficult. The population in Haiti was already vulnerable and faced enormous health threats." – JON ANDRUSof the Pan American Health Organisation.
"Overcrowding in the camps for the displaced, inadequate shelter and sanitation, overburdened medical facilities, ruptured sewer systems – all these factors provide favourable conditions for the breeding of malaria vectors." – FIONA PLACE, a researcher at British risk analysis specialists Maplecroft.
"Because of the amount of time that has gone by, they'll probably have a lot of diabetes that is out of control." – DR STEVEN HARRIS, senior medical director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Haiti.
"While this is a terrible tragedy, there is an opportunity to do something which decades of aid hasn't, and that is build up a public health infrastructure that is stable." – JOSH RUXIN, a Columbia University public health expert.
"It truly is a miracle, she came back to life bit by bit. She is blessed by the gods." – DOMINIQUE JEAN, a surgeon working at a field hospital set up by French aid groups, tells of an 11-year-old girl pulled from rubble in Port-au-Prince after several days.
"Everywhere you go, there is faeces and that's very dangerous. A lot of people are experiencing intestinal problems and there's vomiting all over the place." – RITA ARISTIDE, a nurse at a first aid station run by the Haitian Red Cross.
Compiled by
STEVEN CARROLL