1/30/2010  Joe's email tonight had this in the subject line: "Haiti. I try to write each time at night and the generator goes off and I lose everything." I had forgotten that the generators don't run 24 hours. I've wondered how their supply of diesel fuel is holding out.

 

He wrote that the crew he's been working with left today and Annie would be bringing 3 more patients in the next hour that Matt (trauma surgeon) had selected before leaving. His words: "It was a great crew and I am a little anxious about the next crew.  We continue to put systems in place and change the physical layout of how we do things to make things better. I do not know the full make up of the next crew but the head guy is Corey Colling, an orthopedic traumatologist, dept chair and lecturer. Hopefully there won't be a bunch of big egos. They were not with the last crew and they were superb technically. We did an open back yesterday on a 25 year old paraplegic with preserved sensation to stabilize his back. Great work."

 

He said he's not taken many pictures but Matt had taken about 1,000 with a very good camera and would send them to us on a disc. Late yesterday afternoon, the group went to Annie's (meaning the Bon Samaritan Orphanage in Montrouis) and took the kids to the beach and that it was a needed break for all of them. Afterward, they made rounds and went to Club Indigo to eat. It was the first time he'd been off the hospital compound this week. Their work days are 14-16 hours long and he and Glen, an ER doc from Canada, are coordinating post-op care. He wrote, "We had 3 nurses; 2 were great and the 3rd had been here 2 weeks and was burning out." 

Even though his return ticket on American Airlines is for February 14, now he doesn't know when he'll return as he says he has learned American is not flying till at least February 19th. Does that mean flying into and out of Port au Prince? I don't know.

 

A note of explanation ... Dr. Vic Binkley is from Michigan and is the doctor who established the hospital at Pierre Payen and has been connected with it and Bon Samaritan Orphanage for many years. He was diagnosed with cancer this past fall. Joe wrote that Vic and his wife are coming to Pierre Payen, hopefully Feb. 1 to spend a week and see the people and place for probably the last time. I don't believe Joe has yet met Vic, though I know they've talked by phone. Joe wrote that this visit will be undoubtedly be very emotional. He says, "Utilizing the hospital in this way has been a dream for years and to see it will be satisfying but he still has plans and dreams, per Steve." Steve is a non-medical person who has taken over Vic's role in scheduling medical teams.

 

Joe writes that he has some homesickness, but they are helping a lot of people. They're receiving 3-4 new cases a day for admission. I originally thought the hospital had only 12 beds, but now I'm not sure. It may be larger than that. Patients are getting great care. He writes, "I have been giving Annie or Bob money and they have been bringing food or giving the patients 200 gouds a day.  Most have minimal family here and even those that do, have minimal or no resources."  When he and Melinda were there in November, they learned that families of hospitalized patients are required to provide what their family member needs, including sheets for the hospital bed. They told me of one hospitalized woman who needed insulin; the hospital didn't have any and her family had to travel an hour to buy some, then return with it. I will be curious to learn how the  medicine and supplies he took with him were used.