We Return To Haiti
Report from Dr. Raymond, June 7, 2011:
Our group is divided in two teams. Samanta Patino, a high school student from Palmetto Ridge High School in Naples, Fl. went with Dr Joseph Claudia and Dr Remy Maritza to do community visits. Their mission is to inform people about how to protect and prevent the spread of the Cholera in their community. They went to an Elementary tent school in Port-au-Prince where they distributed preventive kits with demonstrations of how to use them. They also instructed the students on the basics of hygiene including hand washing, the sanitary conditions necessary to cook and prepare fruit and salads, etc. These kits contain: treatment for about 25 gallons of drinking water (aquatab), tooth brush, hand soap and sanitized towel. About 325 kits were distributed to the students. They visited about 10 different classes. Later Samanta went to a kindergarten with Dr Remy where she brought joy to the kids and talked to them about diversity. They wanted to touch her hair, see the color closely, trying to make sense and understand her language. It is so good to see these kids laughing like kids.
Dr. Raymond went to the University Hospital (general hospital) to assist at the emergency room. There things are terrible. This emergency department is overflowed beyond the capacity of people it can treat; only two doctors, two nurses and a pharmacy technician were on site. A fight broke out at the gate where security guards are trying to prevent more patients from being admitted to the emergency room. Trauma cases, cholera cases, active tuberculosis, cardiac patients etc. are everywhere. The scene is of unimaginable chaos. There is no triage possible at this point. One dead patient was just pushed to the side in the corridor and his cardboard bed taken away to be used for another patient. Free medical supplies are not available for the admitted patients. The pharmacy technician runs a small pharmacy inside the emergency room where patient’s relatives that can afford it can buy supplies and hand them to the doctors. The supplies that were provided by Community Mission for Hope were used in one day. We were exhausted! During a brief break I asked the chief resident of internal medicine, Dr Dary, about the reason for so many cases. I also asked about the fate of the patients that could not make it to the emergency room. He answered “It has been raining for the last three days in Port-au-Prince and since the sanitary condition of the people, mostly from the tent cities, is very poor, we are expected a large augmentation of Cholera cases. But the hospital is not in measure of making any staff adjustment for that unless people like you come to volunteer to help, that makes a difference. So thank you for what you are doing. For the people that cannot make it to the emergency room today, some will die and some will be back tomorrow, we are trying not to think of that since we can’t do anything about it, but we stay focused on those we serve in the Emergency room”.
que puedo decir si no sentir un tremendo orgullo por esta NINHA que es Samantha y es sobrina mia ,realmente lo que se vive en Haiti es muy fuerte y DIOS la proteja y le de fuerzas para seguir en esta mision!!!! un beso para ella y para los que la cuidan en la mision!!!!