January 16, 10:00 AM EST: Communications with Haiti
have improved slightly and we have been able to get more information
directly from our contacts there. The scene is chaotic with people in
the street everywhere as even the structures still standing are not
safe to be in. There is no gas and travel on foot is the only
transportation for Haitians. Water, food and medical care are in short
supply and price gouging on the street has begun.
Our plan remains to get the HAM team into Haiti ASAP and
make our way to the Dumay Clinic with the medical support and supplies.
Dr. Gedeon has been doing what he can there but is in desperate need of
supplies and help. Additionally, we will work to set up an
infrastructure to support bringing in additional medical volunteers.
While there is a water supply from a well near the clinic, we will need
to be able to bring in medications, supplies and food to support the
clinic operation and volunteers.
The HAM team is currently scheduled to arrive in Port au
Prince on the 23rd and we shall continue to update this website with
information as it is available.
January 18, 9:00 AM EST: We have recently spoken
with several of our friends and colleagues, who have confirmed how
desperate the situation in Port au Prince has become. There is a great
shortage of water, food and medical supplies given such limited
accessibility with the ports destroyed and the airport being small and
overwhelmed. The fear and frustration of people is causing great
security concerns. What gives us great hope is word that so many of ourfriends and colleagues are alive.
Our challenges shall be much greater than
simply getting into Port au Prince. The HAM truck was undamaged and is
safe, and the main roads from the airport to the river near Dumay are
open, but gas is in short supply. The limited medicine and supplies we
can carry with us will last only a short time, so we are looking for
ways to effectively resupply the Dumay Clinic once we reach it.
Fortunately, the water well at the clinic is functional, but there is
no food supply. We will bring in our own food, but we fear there will
be no food for the victims. There are many obstacles
to overcome, but HAM is determined to provide whatever relief possible once our team arrives on the 23rd.
January 19, 11:00 AM EST: Commercial flights into
Haiti will not begin this weekend as originally scheduled, so the HAM
team continues to scramble to find alternative transportation into Port
au Prince. We have duffel bags filled with medical supplies packed and
ready to go as soon as we can find transportation. The frustration at
the difficulty getting relief supplies and personnel is palpable
outside Haiti as well as within. While HAM is doing everything we can
to respond immediately and provide relief to
the Haitian people, we must realize that the relief effort will
continue for many months to come even before recovery efforts can begin
in earnest. HAM remains committed to helping the people of Haiti today
and tomorrow as we have for the past decade. Know that your support of
HAM will go directly to support the people of Haiti.
January 20, 11:00 AM EST: We now believe
the HAM team shall be able to fly to the Dominican Republic within a
week and reach Port au Prince by land from there. However, a small team
from another NGO we have been working with, Hands On Disaster Response
(HODR), will be arriving at the Dumay Clinic as soon as tomorrow. The
HODR team will be assessing the Dumay area and the clinic compound in
hopes of partnering with us to set up a base of operations out of which
volunteers can work. The combined knowledge and expertise of our two
organization should make for a powerful partnership in bringing support
to the community of Dumay.
January 21, 10:00 PM EST: After a most frustrating
week we are delighted to have our team departing for Santo Domingo in
the Dominican Republic this Saturday! The team of Dr. Tracee Laing
Karaffa, Paul Hammond and Evelyne Poelzing hope to cross the border
into Haiti and arrive in Port au Prince on Monday, January 25th. The
team will be in Haiti for about two weeks and will be based at the
Dumay Clinic. Their priority shall be to treat earthquake victims, but
they'll also be working to develop an infrastructure to support future
teams of medical volunteers at the clinic. The primary challenge will
be to find a supply line of medicine, medical supplies and basic
provisions to support work at the clinic. Our Dr. Gedeon has been
appointed a member of the team the Ministry of Health asked to take
charge of the health sector, so we hope his clout may help us find
access to aid from more substantial NGO's.
We received word from the HODR team that they reached Port au Prince this afternoon and have already visited the Dumay Clinic.
January 23, 10:00 AM EST: After a wild two
days of changing plans, our small team now plans to fly out of Ft.
Lauderdale, FL on a small private plane at 3AM Sunday morning, arriving
in Port au Prince about 6 AM. Once on the ground we shall make contact
with Charles and Dr. Gedeon and make our way to Dumay to start work.
We intend to remain focused on the Dumay community and clinic and provide what care we
can with the limited supplies we are able to carry in. We also hope to set up the Dumay clinic to serve the emergency and
increased medical needs of the immediate community of 10,000 through bringing
in volunteer medical teams to work with Haitian doctors. The
HODR assessment team has decided to remain in the city focus their
efforts close to the downtown area, but we shall be looking for other
partners to work with.
We shall do our best to have updates of our trip posted on this website so please check back.
Our greatest thanks to all our volunteers and supporters who are
helping us bring relief to Haiti. If you would like to help support the
people of Haiti and our work there with a donation, please visit our Support page.
January 24, evening HAM team arrives in Port au Prince via Piper Saratoga single prop
airplane @ 7:30 am. Communication & traffic challenges made for a
slow start, but we connected with Dr Gedeon & several colleagues
from the Ministry of Health, met briefly with an assistant to the coordinator of
international medical aid, and began the process to access contributed
medical supplies at the Dumay clinic. Charles was able to get gas four the truck so
we have transportation and main roads are open. Port au Prince life seems
remarkably normal during the day, though destruction is peppered
everywhere. We have made it to our accommodations at a friend's
undamaged house, hot and tired and ready for sleep after 36 hours of
travel and work. Tomorrow, we leave for Dumay at 6 am to meet Dr Gedeon for full day
of assessment, meetings, and planning. Its going to be a busy week!
The collapsed Caribbean Market.
January 25, evening Much of the day was spent with the Ministry of Health, MOH. One of the
most pressing medical needs at the moment is what to do with all the
post operative patients who need real medical care following surgeries
on the USS Comfort and many of emergency field hospitals set up by
other countries & medical NGOs.
The HAM team meeting with Ministry of Health officials.
We started the day in Dumay assessing the facility to be used for
such
needs, which requires around the clock care. We estimated with
equipment and supplies provided by foreign aid, we could handle as many
as 35
patients, relying on Haitian and volunteer American medical staff we'll
supply. Off to the MOH, where we met with the Minister of Health, Alex
Larsen to discuss how HAM could be of the greatest use. Further
discussions with other MOH officials netted us a return trip to Dumay
with
the Minister of Hospitals, Dr. Phillip Demongue, to show him the
property. Given traffic being worse than usual, we were a bit road
weary at the end of the day.
Tomorrow it's back to the MOH with lists of specific equipment,
medications and supplies we need to convert the clinic into a
post-operative care facility.
Tracee, Dr. Gedeon, and Paul, at the Ministry of Health.
January 26, evening Another day of sourcing to equip and supply the clinic through the
MOH, and therefore a great deal of time talking to officials and
driving. We stopped by St. Damiens, Father Ricks hospital, for a couple of hours
when we had to wait for MOH, and our team worked in triage/patient
followup area. It felt good to actually be hands-on with patients and
directly address individual medical needs.
After a long day of navigating the political process, we were told we
would receive complete support for the Dumay clinic to accept as many
as 35 post-op patients. We shall see if that becomes a reality, but for
now we are happy to be starting to see patients at the clinic first
thing tomorrow!
January 27, evening We finally got down to the business of opening the medical clinic in
Dumay today, and it felt great. We saw 163 patients, and we sorted
through a significant amount of medical supplies and equipment left
behind by the nuns. Patients arrived with a wide variety of ailments,
from blunt trauma injuries, to seizures, to respiratory ailments from
the dust and smoke, to skyrocketing blood pressure. There was no
question that the stress of this disaster has affected most everyone
here.
Patients waiting in hallway to see doctors at the Dumay clinic.
Anticipating the possibility that the clinic may be taking post-op
patients as well as receiving medical volunteer teams, we needed to
clear both work and living space at the clinic and at a second
building 100 yards east. We were able to salvage a good amount of
usable supplies, though less of the medical equipment was in worthwhile
condition. The community has done a great job helping us prepare the
facility and site, and the partnership seems to be working most
effectively. We will continue running daily clinics in Dumay through
Friday and then see if we can be of assistance in some areas of Port au
Prince where medical support has been slow to reach.
Sifting through to see what is worth keeping.
A figurative, and literal, rats nest.
January 28, evening In the midst of this horrible tragedy that has devastated Haiti, we
were reminded today of the bigger picture, the importance of accessible
health care in rural areas such as Dumay. The emaciated infant pictured
on our web site holding the finger of Dr. Mihalov (far right), who treated the
infant in October, returned to the clinic today the fat, healthy baby
pictured here!
Dr. Tracee and the Haitian medical staff saw 193 patients today, while
Evelyne & Paul chased after equipment and medicine from the
Ministry of Health. We have already started to run out of some
medications and with all the pharmacies closed, we have begun a
determined search to re-stock. The clinic also suffers from lack of
basic equipment purchased previously by HAM for the community of Dumay
but remains locked up in the old clinic. The challenges continue, but
our resolve to overcome them has never been stronger.
It is impossible to imagine we would have been able to navigate the
complexities and challenges we've faced coming to Haiti during this
crisis without our "Senior Communications Director", Evelyne Poelzing.
Evelyne's skill in interpreting the language, and most importantly the
culture, has been invaluable.
January 29, evening
17 days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Port au Prince.
Though street life appears to be getting back to normal, damage can be
seen in everyone's face. We see fewer people at the clinic with blunt
force trauma from the earthquake and more and more suffering from long
term consequences. Infections, complications from hastily treated
injuries, and stress induced disease are all too common. Fear and
worry
are the order of the day.
The clinic is functioning more efficiently each day, allowing us to see
greater numbers of people with the emergency staff of 4-5 doctors and
expanded support staff. We are reducing the number of doctors over
the next 2 weeks to a sustainable level. We've committed to operating
the clinic 5 days a week, and are quickly putting together a Haitian
team so clinic operations can continue when US HAM teams are not in the
country. Additionally, we were able to order medical supplies to
replenish our depleted stock.
January 30, evening The HAM team expanded by 25% today with arrival of Dr. Leslie Mihalov
this morning. We spent the afternoon at an orphanage tending to
children under the age of three suffering from infections ranging from
impetigo to pneumonia, and severe malnutrition.
We were able to meet with Dr. Joey and hear first hand accounts of the
community's response to the earthquake. His clinic, Hospital Medicare
Haiti, is where the elder care project HAM funds is based. He and his
small staff saw over 400 people in the six hours immediately following
the earthquake. Many of those individuals suffered severe hypertension,
which he was able to treat with the medications we funded for the elder
care program. It is nice to see HAM's on-going work in Haiti of value
in unexpected situations.
January 31, evening We began our Sunday meeting with Dr. Jacques, our Haitian surgeon and
new Medical Director for the clinic, on staffing and organizational
structure. Once our team leaves Haiti, the Dumay clinic will be
entirely run by a Haitian staff funded solely HAM.
Paul visited the Medishare/University of Miami field hospital at the
airport, an impressive operation using volunteer doctors and nurses
from the US. We suggest medical professionals looking to volunteer in
Haiti check out their program at
www.med.miami.edu/haiti-
relief/.
Doctors Tracee and Leslie, along with translator Evelyne, assisted at
St. Damiens Children's Hospital for much of the day. This important
hospital has provided poor Haitian children with free medical care for
several years. Given the current crisis, they have been overwhelmed
with patients and appreciated the help.
We were also able to pick up much of the medications needed to continue
operating the Dumay clinic. These medications were provided by Promiss
and the WHO, though we shall need to be re-supplying the pharmacy with
our own funding soon.
Our day ended after we met with David Campbell and Stefanie Chang of
HODR about their soon-to-be announced project. They were also able to
connect us with medical cluster coordination in Port au Prince. This
networking of disaster response medical NGO's should be an important
new resource for us.
