There is a hospital near where we are staying that we stopped at to get some supplies yesterday morning. After visiting a camp yesterday (Sunday) and providing some field care, we stopped by another hospital near the President’s Palace. It was larger than the first. Both needed ER docs, but the first needed a surgeon also, so Randy and I decided to volunteer there. We feel our skills will better serve in a hospital as the field treatment need has slowed.
So we went back to the first hospital, Hospitale Community of Haiti (CHC), an existing hospital augmented by tents, docs, nurses, techs, etc...I don't think any of the local staff have been working since the quake. When we walked in I saw Kurt Rathjen! We checked in as staff. They had a need for someone to work triage/ER tonight (Sunday). I hadn't slept since we left for the airport Saturday, going on 40 hours, so Randy volunteered to cover the first part of the shift. He stayed and I went to our hooch, took a cold shower (felt good as pretty sweaty with temp close to 90 during day), took about an hour and half nap, ate dinner, then I relieved Randy at 21:00.
So I'm working the night shift! Things slow down quite a bit when it gets dark. Only a few patients. Otherwise check on patients in hospital. Another ER doc showed up and wants to work night shift thru Wed. I got to lay back down for a couple of hours and she covered, now I'm up and covering.
There is a pretty strong odor, especially in one area of hospital nearest dumpster. Behind it are bodies decaying that they haven't been able to dispose of. There was a rat running around some patients sleeping on the floor that I shewed away, and as I write another ran right in front of my boot that I nearly nailed!
Hope to sleep some this morning, then will come back out, probably switch to working days when it is busiest.
MONDAY NIGHT EMAIL FROM DR. RANDY OWEN
Dear all. Thank you for your prayers. Today we visited a refugee or homeless camp. These are all over the city. We were able to treat some wounds and minister well there. We dropped some of our supplies off with a hospital that needed them. Then I found another hospital where I was able to help out in the OR. Will to back there in the morning.
MONDAY NIGHT EMAIL FROM BOB THOMPSON
Well, it's 11pm and I really need that cold shower and a few hours of sleep. Long but great day.
The new team started really acclimated today with both Randy and Steve plugging into hospitals to serve. Of good news is there has been a real influx of medical talent and supplies in the last couple of days however the hospitals are all short of nurses and there are still some hospitals woefully understaffed. Further Randy Heather and an interpreter found a Haitian hospital which was short of a variety of supplies, almost all of which the Infinity team had brought! So they took several duffels of supplies to them before Randy went to perform surgical work at a hospital that used to be a private plastics clinic but is now an open surgical center.
The original team that came down went for a ride in areas we had not visited to get a last days view of the city and the scope of the disaster. Crews with heavy equipment are now really engaging in digging but It's just such a mess. Massive portions of downtown Port au Prince will simply have to be bulldozed and started over.
We passed one tent camp which was so vast our driver was estimating 20,000+ people were now living there. With nowhere to go, these camps could be there for years unless something is done about clearing sections of the city and rebuilding housing in some kind of coordinated fashion.
We also took a sort of haunting visit to an upscale neighborhood up in the hills, large nice houses, high walls gates etc. Think the Rye or Harrison equivalent of a nice neighborhood. The whole place was just demolished. There wasn't a single inhabitable house in the whole area. For some reason speaking to the people who had lived there, hearing their stories about both family members who survived and those who didn't, and really walking through a neighborhood for the first time really brought this all home to me. It was sort of banging in my ears. The first block of days was so intense and focused on roaming the camps and triaging wounded people I guess the scope of this hadn't sunk in.
Anyway, Scott, Richie and I made another visit to the orphanage called House of the Children of God before meeting up with the others for a preplanned close to our day. The family next door to where we are staying have been so beyond fantastic ranging from cooking meals for us, driving us all over creation, interpreting etc. Today the mama (who is a chef by the way) made 200 meals for us which we took way out into the Carrefour district which is past the port. Traffic down there was horrendous but we had promised the administrator of a place called Ecole Salvation that we would feed his people tonight. We finally got there and provided about 100 pounds of water and a meal to each of the 160 or so people there.
It was now dark but we had about 40 meals left and Dimas had mentioned to another camp in the same area we would try to bring them food. This was a little surreal but God provided again, just as He has done the whole time we have been down here. The camp was down at the end of a long alley with no room to turn around so we parked on the street at the mouth of the alley. The folks from the alley camp came forward and promptly responded to our request to form a line. It was now really dark and we had all heard the stories of people "mobbing" food drops particularly late in day or at night. So now there's a line of the folks from the camp and we begin handing out the food, sort of assembly line style carrying the pre-portioned meals from the van hand to hand to the front of the line. Of course when people on the street passing by saw food they began getting in line. It was clear there were way more than 40 people and we only had 40 meals. However, when we handed out the last meal, everyone from the camp and the people who had jumped in line from the street all walked away with one.
No comments:
Post a Comment