Awakened again by the sounds of singing through the valley. Very serene and much better than wakening to an alarm.
Rounds were made, dressings changed and we were off to the operating room where we were able to reduce a 5 week old open femur fracture and apply an external fixator. Earlier in the morning we received a desperate message from the University Hospital in Port au Prince. All 38 orthopaedic surgeons from across the globe had left Haiti and there were 10 orthopaedic cases at their facility. When we arrived it was obvious there were no orthopaedic surgeons as we were essentially mobbed by physicians, PA’s, and nurses carrying x-rays. We brought back 4 patients to Double Harvest needing surgery including a young woman with an open tibia fracture from a traffic accident yesterday. I asked the coordinator where a patient with a similar injury would be treated in Port au Prince before the earthquake and she told me that we were standing in the hospital they would usually go!
We have established a relationship with the University Hospital and will be arranging daily or every other day “e-mail rounds” with them. We hope that we can arrange to have patients transported by us back to Double Harvest for treatment and then returned to their home or back to the Hospital. They were extremely grateful and relieved that we could provide this for them.
I took a picture of a little girl dancing and singing in the courtyard among the tents full of disease and despair. She was smiling and singing and I could not help to wonder what the future holds for her.
We take so much for granted in our day to day lives that we really don’t realize what we have. There is no more sobering reminder of that then what we have experienced here in Haiti. As those who came before us can attest, we are humbled.
God Bless.
Don.
