The overall situation on the ground here in Haiti remains very confusing. It's not clear who is able to accept patients for surgery, which hospitals can no longer accept patients, and who does/doesn't have transportation for patients. We continue to do everything we can here at the hospital to take care of those who need care. There are a couple of new avenues where we are throwing ourselves into the relief effort:
1) We continue to correspond regularly with the USNS Comfort Navy hospital ship that is receiving more cases than they are equipped to handle. They already have a waiting list that is beyond their capabilities and are running out of time to treat those in need. We are one of the hospitals responsible for post-op care from the ship and although we are ready and waiting, the Comfort doesn't have enough helicopters to get patients off the ship. These delays in moving patients to post-op are creating bottlenecks that are severely limiting the Comfort's ability to provide surgery for patients in dire need of care. We should start receiving post-op patients by helicopter to Fond des Blancs tomorrow (Saturday), but if the Comfort doesn't receive more helicopters it could be a long wait. A captain from the ship is working with the US military to get us cots, as we are quickly going to run out of beds here at the hospital once the flights start to finally come in.
We are working with Catholic Relief Services, USAID, and donations from the US to help us receive all of these new patients discharged from the Comfort. Once patients start to arrive, we will analyze their needs and perhaps request volunteers from abroad to help us with certain cases.
2) We are also working with Captain Coulter of the 82nd Airborne, whose team has been trying to evacuate 6 severely malnourished children from Mother Teresa's home in Port-Au-Prince. The home was set up to take care of the kids, but collapsed during the earthquake. Capt. Coulter is trying to find a helicopter (apparently an impossible task these days) to take the children out to us for treatment. If we can't find a helicopter we will send an ambulance and go pick them up. It sounds like we are the only place that Capt. Coulter has found that is willing to take these kids in for treatment and I am sure we are going to receive a lot more patients from his unit in the coming days.
We have been battling for goods and services in the last couple days and have been somewhat successful in a couple of areas:
1) WHO
Jean Bertrand (one of our ambulance drivers) and I went to Port-Au-Prince yesterday morning to find meds and supplies for the hospital. All of our previous pharmacies have collapsed or been closed since the quake and we have not been able to purchase our general stocks for the hospital. Thanks to a tip from some friends at Partners in Health, we were able to get to the World Health Organization and find some essential meds to keep our operations going. We also made additional contacts to purchase or receive meds and supplies from other organizations in the coming weeks.
2) UNICEF
We are currently working on a partnership with UNICEF that would help provide nutritional and primary health interventions in Fond des Blancs, Villa, and a few of the numerous makeshift (sheets and sticks for houses) refugee camps that have sprung up in Port-Au-Prince and Petit-Goave. Dr. Miliane Clermont has been meeting with some of the committees set up by the refugee camps and we hope to start a partnership with UNICEF to start to take care of their residents' basic needs (especially for mothers and children). In the meantime, we have given Dr. Miliane some pediatric medications to take care of some immediate needs in the camps.
3) Funding
The banks are starting to work again and we are able to use your donations. It has been tricky to get cash since the earthquake, but thankfully banks are finding ways to stay open. Our staff received payroll without delay this month.
Our team on the ground continues to do remarkable work and I am constantly impressed by their resilience and solidarity. Our staff has been through a lot since the earthquake, but they continue to do everything possible to participate in the relief effort. This is going to be a long haul and I couldn't be prouder of the attitude and dedication of those who work for St. Boniface.
Please feel free to write me at if you have any questions or comments, or visit our website at www.haitihealth.org to see how you can help.
