The woman who had not eaten for 4 days

After my short run, as usual we did not leave on time. I took the opportunity to take down my tent and pack my sleeping bag, getting things ready to depart early tomorrow morning. I felt sorry that I was about to leave. I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to come down here to help and I hope I did.

Day four of our clinic at Carrefour. Marcelin's family cooked food for the patients today. It was rice and beans with chicken.

In the afternoon we saw an old woman who complained of pain under her breast bone. Over the last few days we saw plenty of patients with the same complaint. It dawned on me that she must be having hunger pangs since her pain was gone after she ate her lunch. Before today her last meal was 4 days ago. Gabeson, my interpreter felt so sorry for her that he fetched several energy bars and a bottle of water, the woman took them gratefully and packed them in her little bag. There must be so many out there hungry and thirsty.

Gale told us that in less than 2 weeks that we were there, we saw 1331 patients, not counting the people that showed up on our door steps to be seen in the mornings and evenings that we were home.

The patients of Carrefour and the boy who passed 7 worms

Day 3 at Carrefour, There must be a hundred or more patients lining outside the clinic.

John and Rick asked me to see a youngster with what looked like Madura feet. We had no anti-fungal medications for him. We added this to our wish list.

The boy who passed 7 worms came back with his tall sister, we had some albendazole for them. At the end of the visit he very calmly told Benite that his mother died yesterday. We learned that their mother had been ill before the earthquake but she had crushed injuries and whether this quickened her demise, we would never know. It just struck me how calm and accepting this little boy of the fate doled out to him... Benite and I just cried over this. I had nothing for him but an energy bar brought a little smile on the faces of these two children.

A young man came to see us for a urinary tract infection and several skin sores. He made me laugh when he told us that he was in the shower when the earthquake occurred and he came running out only to find that his house was collapsing and he jumped onto the next house which fell as well and he proceeded to jump onto the next house, finally running out in the street, stark naked.

We had a nightmarish ride home, detouring many times because of horrendous traffic jam. Papi was a saint, patiently driving us around making plenty of U-turns. He almost missed our exit to our home, it was easy to do so because the streets were quite dark and we took close to 3 hours to come home!

Carrefour Clinic: Our second day

Despite our good intention of an early schedule we seldom left on time. In order to follow the early schedule I got up earlier each day, around 5:30 am to prepare for my run and I continued to dedicate myself to my training. Haiti must be one of the worst places for running. The sidewalk is narrow and I had to dodge pedestrians, vendors, buses, trucks, cars parked on the sidewalk, hog, goats and chickens and I had to be careful of potholes.

Before we could go to our clinic in Carrefour, we had to drive to Blanchard to pick up our pharmacist, lab technician, interpreters and supplies, in particular medications. This probably would be my last time seeing the Blanchard clinic and the children. We bumped into heavy traffic on the coastal road and Marcelin directed Papi, our driver to go through Port-au-Prince. Seeing streets after streets of destroyed buildings in broad day light hit home for the first time. I cried for the first time, finding it difficult to imagine myself in their shoes. We wound through the garbage choked waterways and by the time we arrived, many patients were already waiting for us.

My very first patient was a 20-year-old woman with a very high fever for 2 weeks and 3 days of diarrhea. She had a very stiff neck and I could not tell if she had cerebral malaria, bacterial meningitis or typhoid fever. Our malaria testing kit was not working. We gave her some advil to lower her fever and she was sent down to a local doctor down the street who was able to test her for typhoid fever which she turned out to have. We had to turn away a couple of children, one of whom told me he passed 7 worms; we ran out of worm medications. Before the day was over, we were out of many medications.

The arrival of the first relief team

I was the only one left from the Assessment team besides Ted, the fuel relief person.

Last night the first relief team arrived with about 11 members, including an orthopedic physician, an ER doctor, a Haitian pediatrician, a med-ped doctor and several physician assistants.

Today we started with sorting through the supplies brought by this team. The nice bonus was we had Jim, a professional cook with us and for the first time, we had real breakfast.

We planned to run two new clinics: one in Carrefour and another in Bon Repos. With fresh supplies we had a late start. On our way we saw UN and US soldiers distributing sacks of rice to crowds of people waiting under the hot sun. We drove through the market that sent off stench of rotten vegetables and fruits, slums in the midst of garbage, waterways choked with garbage and cans, streets filled with trash and rubbles. These were unthinkable places for us to live but they were hogs' heaven. Indeed hogs were happily feasting in the waterways.

Because of traffic jam, it took us two hours to arrive at our new clinic in Carrefour. The first team only had to walk to their clinic in Bon Repos. When we arrived at the Carrefour Clinic, there was already a crowd waiting at the entrance. We took an hour to set up our clinic and supplies and began to see patients after a quick bite of PB & J.

The patients at Carrefour were patients with chronic medical conditions requiring long term follow-ups. Many had run out of medications and could not see their doctors because of the earthquake. Almost all the patients I saw did not know what they were taking, in any case we had limited number of medications, substitution was the rule. Soon we were told by the people running the pharmacy that we were out of many medications. We ended our clinic at 4:30 pm, having to turn away many more, promising them that we would return.

On our way home, we passed through Port-au-Prince. At dusk, the devastation was surreal. Burning of trash and tires added to the sad state of affair of Haiti, the environmental disaster that it is already in.

Another busy day in Blanchard

Another day alone in the Blanchard Clinic. There was no shortage of patients although we were running out of medications. A child came with periorbital cellulitis but we had no antibiotics suitable for children. There was no sterile water to reconstitute ceftriaxone for an intramuscular injection. I finally gave her a dose of cephalexin dissolving a capsule in some clean water and she was to return for an injection tomorrow.

There seemed to be endless string of patients and the day was rather exhausting with us running out of water and no lunch. This reminded me of my time in the rural area of Mtwara, Tanzania when it just went through a severe drought and there was a lack of food. When I first whipped out my sandwich on my first day at the Ligula Hospital ground, I was soon surrounded by children and adults watching me eating my lunch. I gave up lunch for the duration of my stay, only eating two meals a day.

In the evening, Samuel came and brought his x-ray that he had at the Israel Hospital. He had a facial fracture, probably an inferior orbital fracture that entrapped one of his eye muscles thus causing him to have double vision. The doctor would call him when they had a plastic surgeon in their hospital. I do hope he will regain normal vision soon.

The man with no shoes

Last week, the soldiers brought a man with a big gash on his foot for me to see. He was bare feet and stepped on a piece of glass. When I took a breather that morning, I happened to look out the back door, I saw a man working at digging a trench for the wall of the clinic using a pick axe, he was bare footed. Each time the pick axe landed on the ground, it seemed it was inches from his feet. I tried to look for a pair of old shoes from the donation from Texas but only found over sized shoes. John brought him in and explained to him that the doctor did not want him to go about bare feet. We finally were able to find him a pair of old shoes with a hole in one of them. With a pair of socks and his shoes, he was happy.

Today I brought the pair of shoes that Ted picked up from the Caribe bus left behind by one of the relief persons. These I gave to him and gave his old pair to his friend who was wearing a pair of shoes with huge holes on the sides. Many more workers showed me that they did not have shoes but were wearing slippers. Unfortunately I had no more shoes to give to them.

I was the only person left now to run the clinic at Blanchard. The woman with the crushed injury returned to have her dressing changed, she almost fainted. A woman with twins returned with worsening mastitis and another with jaundice with a belly that grew large over a short period that I feared that she had something ominous. All I could do was to ask her to go to the nearest hospital. A man came in with a crushed finger and a partially avulsed nail from a hammer injury.

We had so many patients that Benite had to see some of the less sick patients and Woodman was my interpreter for the rest of the afternoon.
The clothes that Dawn donated from Texas were too large for any of the Haitians to wear. Instead Gale had them cut up and sewn into blankets.

Looking for a place to set up Bon Repos Clinic

Today we went to visit Dr. Margaret Blaise's Clinic, a pediatrician who was enthusiastic about giving a space for us in her clinic once a week to run a clinic for the people at Bon Repos. Her house was damaged by the earthquake and she was living in the clinic. She barely escaped being crushed by the water tower that would have landed on her and her car as she pulled away from the parking space just before the earthquake hit.

In the afternoon Kerline and I visited the school that was damaged by the earthquake, its space was to be used by her women who were to go to school after hours. We went across the street to visit the camp that housed some of the inhabitants who lost their homes. It was very hot and no one was at the camp. There were a couple of people with broken limbs in cast sitting in a car and wishing that they had some pain medications. We went back and found some for them.