PROVIDENCE (The Providence Journal) -- The public-health challenges facing Haiti in the wake of this week's devastating earthquake are monumental and will persist for a very long time, said an infectious disease specialist with the Warren Alpert School of Medicine and Brown University who has twice worked on the island.

"You just realize how incredibly difficult it's going to be, and how much suffering is occurring now and will occur over the next few weeks and months. My heart goes out to them," Dr. Timothy P. Flanigan said Wednesday.

Flanigan, chief of infectious diseases at Brown and Miriam and Rhode Island hospitals, most recently volunteered in 2008 at Hospital Albert Schweitzer Haiti in Port-au-Prince. Even before the earthquake, he said, the island's health-care system was inadequate to the needs of the country's people. And not just health care was lacking, he said. Security and "basic resources" in the poor nation suffered, he said.

The immediate challenge, he said, will be getting people out of crumbled buildings. Many will have "crush injuries" and "terrible infections," which hospitals and emergency rooms will be unable to successfully treat in great volume. Survivors will face further hurdles in the longer-term.

Flanigan advises people who want to help to donate to such organizations as the Red Cross and to support American efforts, perhaps involving the military, to save lives now and then help rebuild the country.

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