Samoa measles crisis: Helping Hands volunteers feeding families

via RNZ Pacific 

The death toll from Samoa's measles epidemic has risen to 79, as a State of Emergency is extended in the country.

As medical staff continue to work around the clock, and the country welcomes international aid, there is a host of people preparing meals and care packs for those affected.

"The hospitals, they give the patients three meals a day, but we also wanted to help the families as well because you know there's a mum and a dad - the hospital can only feed so many," Eka Arp told Checkpoint's Alex Perrottet and Logan Church.

She and her volunteers have been hard at work preparing meals for families of those hospitalised with measles.

Her cousin Apu's home in Apia has been converted into an industrial kitchen to cater for all the need.

"Because we've gotten so many donations and we don't want anything to go off, we get teams of volunteers to come in and chop and pack, so we can freeze all the vegetables we have," Ms Arp said.

"This morning we had like a million pineapples that needed to be chopped up. We serve slices of pineapple to all the nursing stations, we package them up and we'll take them to all the nursing stations. Then the rest of them we make into a juice that we can give to all the families."

Ms Arp started with some family members wanting to cook soup for doctors. Now there are 12 core workers and a whole host of part time volunteers.

People are literally walking off the street to help, and businesses are jumping on board.

Raema von Reiche is the manager of Navigator Enterprises. They have seven staff, who come in to help prepare food.

"We decided that we were going to volunteer, come and do an afternoon of chopping up and whatever needed to be done."

She said they had seen a lot of coverage on TV, and came to Ms Arp to see what they could do to help.

Ms Arp said she didn't want any attention, but had to resort to social media to coordinate those wanting to help.

"It seems like every time we are just about to run out of something, somebody will knock on the door. [We'll] have this much onions left, we'll be like 'we need to buy more bags of onions' and onions will arrive.

"Every day it's been like that, and when we go to the hospitals, we noticed that there's a lot of families that both parents are there, even their grandparents, because they've had three or four, two or more children that are affected."

She said it raised the question of who was feeding the rest of those families at home, "so we wanted to help with that."

Out the front of the home are stations where donated food is placed. There are mountains of bananas and other fruits.

Inside there is a huge table where the food preparation happens. The lounge has been converted into a coordination centre where care packs with toothpaste, toothbrushes, diapers, wipes and soap are put together.

"We have a team that are sewing non-stop," Ms Arp said. "Constantly sewing just to keep up with the demand of the packs we give out."

The volunteer work has had some hurdles though. When health authorities saw the scale of the operation they moved to shut it down.

"They did put a notice out there that they wanted to stop all food donations and any gifts that were coming to the hospital," Ms Arp said.

"We were able to go into the Minister of Health and she was very grateful for Helping Hands because I know a lot of doctors and nurses have been having our food.

"So they were happy for us… as long as we were working together to comply with just making sure that we don't spread anything.

"We're back in the kitchen now. Yesterday was very quiet and today it's busy again, chop, chop, chop."

The group also has a full-time accountant to collate all the data.

"We count every single coconut it's given, we want to be transparent. So we have records of everything, things that are coming in going out."

Donations have been arriving from home and abroad. It is not just food. There are also Christmas goods, uniforms for staff and shopping vouchers.

Helping Hands continues to keep busy, as the number of measles-related deaths in Samoa slows down.

About 5,500 measles cases have been reported since the outbreak began in mid-October, and 78 have been reported dead. Most of those were children under the age of five.

Samoa's MPs paid tribute to the victims of the epidemic on Tuesday morning.