Saturday, May 22, 2010

THIRD WAVE HITS THE SHORES OF HAITI







First picture is of Melanie helping a 22 year old woman walk. She has a rare bone and connective tissue disorder causing her knees to be frozen backward and her feet malformed. She has been at the Hopital for treatment, they slowly brought her knees to straight, and the picture shows her talking the first walk of her life with Malanie at her side.

May 21. Headed to the airport early this am we are Ukiah Team 2 passing Ukiah Team 3 in the sky as they arrive. On our way home, none too soon. I was having trouble keeping my vital organs healthy. It will be a relief to be in a climate where it doesn't take constant vigilance to maintain my electrolytes in balance. As we passed through the city of Port au Prince, there was hustle and bustle everywhere. People were crowding the streets moving purposely along, to school, to market, to work. This sounds like a typical city morning, but these people were moving along with the streets piled with rubble, broken cracked buildings everywhere, piles of garbage, open sewers and dirty water to slosh through. Pigs were out in numbers eating garbage. At one place near the market there was a tanker truck accident and there was an oil spill covering 2 city blocks where people were slipping through this thick gooey substance that consisted of oil, dirt, water and garbage, it covered everything that touched it.

10 of us were crammed in a hired van to get to the airport, the traffic was insane and we got is a car accident in a turnabout (fender bender). The place was crawling with UN peacekeepers in military uniforms from around the world. They witnessed the accident and pulled us over. It was a bit unnerving, at the same time fascinating. The officer who spoke to us was from Senegal. The UN forces are the government in Haiti now, the police force. They were appropriate, our driver was a professional and had all his papers in order, we were set on our way in time to catch our flight out of Haiti.

The ride was hard for me with profound questions on what good we had done, what is the best way to bring aid, what is sustainable? What is the answer to the extreme poverty, pollution, disease? I met a volunteer in the airport who was an agronomist. She had come to teach people to raise rabbits sustainably.

THIRD WAVE HITS THE SHORES OF HAITI - Words of Gurpreet, Emily and Becky on their arrival at the Hopital

“The ride from the airport was filled with experiences that assaulted our senses; the mob outside the red gates, the miles of rubble and trash-lined streets, the crowds of beautiful Haitian people, many children and no fat people. Emily PA, Becky RN, Gurpreet RN and Linda RN, Brad RN, Dale MD (cardiology) and Mike MD (internal medicine) the new Ukiah Team joined with Rick the pediatrician and Reginald the ENT doc.

Luke, pre-med student and administrator oriented us to the hospital, we changed into scrubs and got to work. Dale was immediately enlisted to help with Laura’s cardiac patient. We were happy to find David and Melanie from the Ukiah team, the only ones who knew about the med/surg patients. Dr. Nelson welcomed us warmly but seemed disappointed that our team did not include any OR nurses. Gurpreet, Linda, and Brad jumped into doing wound care, of which they are rapidly becoming experts, especially dealing with all those external fixators from the orthopedic surgeries. Becky and Emily headed to the ER where we met Mark who after one week was running the place. George, also ER physician, was busy seeing patients. Shan is the other pre-med student who is incredibly helpful. In the background is the hard-working Haitian team of doctors, nurses and, most helpful, the translators (they even know where the dressing supplies are!)

We went to the nursery and met Lynn and Leanna's baby, Sara, who is continuing to be more responsive and interactive all the time. Michelle the pediatrician is great to work with and will not be shocked if she sees another dehydrated baby or two tomorrow.
Today we took care of an asthmatic woman in severe respiratory distress. She got all the treatments and medications we would have given at UVMC but still remained hypoxic with extremely labored breathing. We arranged a transport to the Miami Field Hospital. Mike accompanied her in the ambulance and later said they almost had to intubate her en route. They were relieved to arrive at the well-equipped ICU at Miami.

After Mark, Emily and Becky ran in circles all afternoon trying to find medicines and supplies, it was wonderful to see Reginald organizing the ER supply room. He even cleared space in the middle of the room as Mark had envisioned to be better prepared in the event of another code (after running two codes on the floor last week). Becky is very proud of her first dehydrated Haitian baby IV (DHBIV) and also wishes there was an RT volunteer in this group as Becky and Emily have been figuring out how to do the EKGs. We helped suture the last open wound on the face of the young girl who had facial trauma from a brick that fell off a wall. Sadly she remains blind in that eye, presumably from optic nerve damage as the eye appears normal. She was discharged home today.

The cutest ones in Haiti are the children. They have big beautiful eyes and smiles on their faces. Today Linda, Melanie, David, Brad, and I spent all day doing dressing changes. Most wounds are complex, especially the ones with external fixators. If we were in USA, we would medicate the patient for the wound care process. Here we had to change dressings without medications which made the process longer. I had the opportunity to get to know some the patients and translators. I almost felt like I shouldn't have questioned them because their stories are heart breaking and make me want to cry. How can I cry in front of these patients who are so happy to have us here to help them? (I know what you are thinking Candace but I'm holding on). So many patients here don't have any place to go on discharge. One of the patients asked me if I can help get her a tent, there are so many like her. We did take some time to eat lunch and by the end of the day, my feet were hurting so bad. When I finally sat down, I couldn't get out of the chair and today was supposed to be an easy day. I better go. Take care.”

Picture of Emily at new resusitation station in the ER, Bus load of Ukaih Team 3 arriving from the airport

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