Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question because I share his concerns.
This is why we receive daily reports. We receive reports not only from our mission in Haiti but also from the partners with whom we are working.
To describe the challenge, when I asked the Canadian Red Cross, in a new field hospital, to send a unit there to help with the treatment of cholera, they had to send someone. The very next day two people were sent down to talk to the Government of Haiti as to the best place to have it located. They had to work with the local community.
We know some of the challenges. Cholera is new to this population, so they are unaware of the disease itself. Time has to be spent in the communities explaining that there is going to be a treatment centre. In some of the more remote areas, they believe that bringing in a treatment centre means bringing cholera to the community. This does take time.
Transportation has to be arranged. The field unit is now being manned by Canadian professionals who responded to the call. Each of the 170 treatment centres that are in Haiti now had to go through the same process.
We are receiving reports as to how much medicine and how many clients they are seeing every day. We are hopeful that the statistics coming out will show that we may be slowing the progress down, and hopefully we will be able to stabilize very shortly.
Unfortunately, the member is quite right; the ability of our workers and the workers of the various organizations who are on the ground to provide care requires safety. We would not be able to provide any medical care unless we could assure the safety of the people who are there to offer that help.
Consequently we have groups working on safety logistics, infrastructure, health, treatment, and all of this is being coordinated to the best of our abilities. We are calling for peace. We are calling for stability.
We are very concerned that if we do not manage the cholera epidemic, things will only get—