Dr. Benitez Haiti Update #3
He said the group saw about 200 patients today, 45 of them children he saw. He saw a lot of kids that were actually sick, not so much with injuries. He said people had heard there was a pediatrician and kids that have been coughing or fever for weeks showed up today. Lots of pneumonias, he’s not sure why. He said certainly they have all been sleeping outside for weeks and maybe that had something to do with it. He also said there were a lot of patients with complications from old wounds. A woman who had a leg amputated and also a diabetic came back in with a glucose of 650, normally it shouldn’t be over say 170 or so. They didn’t have insulin but gave her fluids trying to bring it down. He also said there was a baby born today. He said the baby wasn’t breathing so they came yelling for Norberto to come help. As he ran into the room the baby started crying on her own, they think she went about 3 minutes. He said at first she was a bit “floppy” but after 5 minutes she started increasing in tonicity. They are keeping her overnight. Evidently, this woman was having the baby right there on the ward floor, he keeps telling me, “wait till you see the pictures”. An interesting problem is that the plane they came in was donated by a NASCAR team but they just took it out of service for the Daytona 500 so they don’t have a way to come back. He said the guy who is in charge of the group, a Hatian, spent all day trying to find a plane to bring them home on Thursday but got back without luck. Norberto says he keeps saying, “don’t worry” and “no problem” but it would be nice to have that resolved soon. Lastly, he said the people are super appreciative. When they got back to the house today there were about 12 local men in the yard with popcorn and scotch for the medical team. When they offered Norberto scotch and he said no, they asked him what he liked, he said rum, a little time later one of them showed up with a small bottle of rum for him 🙂 He ended by saying “I’m tired today, yesterday I wasn’t tired, but today I am”.
Dr. Benitez Haiti Update #2
In re: to his personal cell, he has been able to text but there is no connection for dialing out or receiving calls from me. He said everyone slept well, the house is very comfortable and he is not sure who the people are that own it but they have been “treating us very well”. As he said last night they are three to a room but he said there are also four people sleeping out on a terrace in tents. The family cooked breakfast for them, there are showers and the electricity in the house is being run by a generator. He noted that it and one other house were the only lighted homes he saw while he was talking to me at 7p. They set up this morning a triage area under a tent in the yard of the hospital. He called it “primitive medicine. Between all the docs they saw about 150 patients, he himself saw about 30 kids. They think that as word gets out they are there those numbers will increase. He says a lot of what he saw were wound infections. Two week old wounds that were either never treated or bandaged superficially and are now infected. He said he gave more IM injections today than he had in the last 20 years. Basically, just giving them what we would give over a ten day, by mouth dose in a one time shot and hope for the best. He also said they treated a lot of patients that were given external pins for fractures last week by the surgeon but sent home without antibiotics (because they didn’t have any) and the pins are now infected. So again, gave them shots of antibiotics and asked them to come back for the next few days so they could get shots every day. He said a guy, about 50 y/o, came in with a crushed leg that had gangrene but refused to have his leg amputated. They gave him an IM shot and some antibiotics by mouth and sent him home. But told him they will be there for the week if he changes his mind. Lastly, he said the supplies he brought have been awesome. They took 25 pairs of crutches and started giving them out, only one to each patient and today alone gave away 35! He said they could “have used another 200”! He said most of the kids that came in today were parentless. Either brought in by grandparents or other family members, in one case, a 12 y/o old boy that brought in his 7 y/o brother because he was coughing and feverish and turned out he had pneumonia. He told Norberto through the interpreter that they lived in Port au Prince and their parents were buried in the rubble and not found so they came to this town where they had family. He also elaborated more on Port au Prince. He said the military and Israelis have set up “hospitals” in the hangars of the airport to treat the people of the capital but the city actually is pretty deserted. He said there is nothing left standing and you look at a “10 block area of rubble and know there have to be dead people under there with no access to get through the piles to get to them”. As you leave the city you see more tent cities set up and people just walking the roads with their few belongings going back to their families in the country. He said they passed an area where they all commented on the stench and the driver pointed to an area were they were driving by a mass grave. He reiterated he felt safe, the family they are staying with are wonderful to the point of even finding the group some Haitian beer tonight 🙂 He isn’t sure where they got it and it isn’t cold but he said it was great!
Dr. Benitez Haiti Update #1
After a very chaotic morning and three delayed flight times. Norberto, and his 1300 lbs of medical supplies, flew out of Ft. Pierce at 12:30 this afternoon. It was a small propeller plane but he texted me when he landed in Port au Prince that the flight was uneventful. He is with a medical team from Indiana and North Carolina that consists of, among others, general surgeons, an oral surgeon, family practice, pediatric rehab doc and nurses. A group of about 17. After packing the van with more than 100 boxes, they left the airport at about 4p and were still on the road at 7:45 when he texted me that the destruction they were seeing driving to their destination was severe. In Port au Prince he said there are whole blocks that are rubble. Not a standing building for blocks and blocks. And “thousands” of people sleeping in tents. Tents made of everything from metal, plastic and even paper. They arrived at the hospital in a town called Petite Riviera … approx 3 hours west of Port au Prince. They are at a hospital called Charles Colimon. He says this is an area that has no damage. The hospital is small with two operating rooms and electricity from a generator with a working autoclave. He says they have done 1011 surgical cases since the earthquake. It is the only hospital doing surgery in the entire area so people are coming by car/bus or even walking for surgery. As he spoke to me at 9:45p there were already people sleeping in the yard of the hospital waiting to be seen tomorrow morning. The group is staying in a private house that he says is very big and clean. They are sleeping three to a room but he says the rooms have electricity and his room has a fan, which is good because he says it is very hot. He is there with Papo (his 28 y/o son that is a paramedic) so they are sharing a bed and another doctor is sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor. They are eating snacks that they brought for dinner, Norberto is having crackers and vienna sausage 🙂 and then going to bed, he says it has been a long day but he is excited about tomorrow and says he thinks they will able “to do some good work” there. He should call me tomorrow to let me know what kind of cases they are seeing. Any prayers would be appreciated ~ Anna