Jimani, days 2 and 3

We woke up fairly early on Thursday morning to drive back to Jimani in hopes of finding a place for the medical team to work.  Prayer was the first order of the day, as we knew God had us in Jimani for a reason, we just needed to find where to go.  We were first directed to a clinic associated with the hospital, where we also put our name on the list.   After asking around on the street, a man finally directed us to the other orphanato, which hadn’t opened yet.  The International Medical Alliance built a clinic on the outskirts of Jimani four years ago, which had been turned into a makeshift hospital.  When we arrived here, we were enthusiastically greeted and sent to the wards to help out.

At the top of the hill, the clinic had been turned into a surgery center with six operating rooms which were running pretty much nonstop by the various orthopedic surgeons, who were performing amputations, bone reductions and fixations, and other various procedures.  This was mostly done without the aid of x-rays, as the patients would have to be sent to the hospital in town to get simple films performed and many were too unstable.  After surgery, they were sent to the PACU, a trailer turned ICU, and then to the orphanage turned hospital wards building at the bottom of the hill.  This two story building with 6 rooms per floor was packed with over 200 patients, plus their families.  Patients were laying in the halls, outside, and on mattresses crammed into the rooms.  My heart was broken to see the kids and adults with amputated limbs, along with the lucky ones who had long casts or external fixators on their limbs in hopes of saving an arm or a leg.   The ortho docs were doing their best to save as many patients as possible.

One of the things which amazed me was how strong the Haitians were.  If a kid in the states had an amputated leg, I’m sure depression would set in and the patient would complain and moan about his or her state.  I never heard one complaint from the Haitian patients.  You could hear screaming as wounds were cleaned, hopefully with the aid of morphine.  Yet afterwards, they would stoically go on, aided only by Tylenol and Motrin, often the only medicine we could give to these patients who would have had Percocet, Vicodin or other narcotics here in the states.

People who had lost mothers, brothers, sisters in the earthquake, yet had brought those who could survive the long trek to our hospital in hopes of saving them.  And they all helped each other, with medications, bedpans, moving, you name it.

Immediately at the hospital, we were all put to work.  I was part of Ward A, along with Dr Neil and Nurse Judy.  We had about 50 patients in our rooms and in the hallways.  My job was to help with the charting initially, as there were so many different doctors and teams, and some of the patients just had notes scribbled on whatever paper could be found.  We organized the charts so that no one would be overmedicated while reassessing the patients and tending to their needs.

Darren, an ER PA from Ohio on our team, helped Dr John the first day, cleaning out wounds, which is a thankless but necessary job to prevent infection of the surgical sites.

Nurse Laura, a Trauma ER nurse from Atlanta, was a rockstar in the ER/Triage area where the most critical patients were located.  There, two docs and two nurses cared for some very sick patients and saw many new ones, organizing all the new patients to the various rooms to get the appropriate care.

Robin’s knowledge of both Spanish and Creole was a great benefit.  She was able to tell patients how to take their medicine, what the shots they were getting were for, and just generally a great aide to the docs and medical staff she worked with.

Andy, Chris and Erika worked tirelessly all day, moving supplies, handing out food, moving patients, and generally doing whatever they could to help out.

We worked 10 hours that day until the next crew came to relieve us.  After another dinner of rice, beans, and a half a chicken each, we spent the night at a hotel in Jimani.  Here, we were treated to a shower from a pipe in the wall and a flushing toilet, both of which were MUCH appreciated.  We were “serenaded” to sleep by the music from the bar at the end of the street, which was quite loud and quite Dominican.  Luckily, our fan helped drown out much of the noise.

We returned the next day at 7 am to the hospital wards. Darren was put in charge of Ward D, where he and one other doc and nurse had 51 patients to take care of while trying to discharge some.  Nurse Laura went back to her role in the ER, and I was set as the pharmacist.    This was not quite what I had mind for helping out, but it was a role that needed to be filled.  God was using that day to teach me humility and that His plan is bigger and better than ours.  We worked to hand out medication and supplies and tried to keep everything in order.  There were antibiotics to be mixed, prescriptions to be filled prior to patients being discharged, and a storage room to be organized.  Andy and Chris set up some bunk beds in the storage room to use as shelves, so that we could be a bit more organized, which was a great blessing.   Makarios purchased paper, pens and folders to be used for patient charts, which were needed and greatly appreciated.

Overall, the day flowed fairly well, and the hospital was making order out of chaos until…. El terremoto

We were standing in the storage room at 6:45 pm, getting ready to leave for the night, when all of the sudden, yelling and mass panic could be heard.  Upon walking out of the room, we saw patients rapidly leaving the building.  An aftershock had hit, imperceptible to many of us Americans yet terrifying to the Haitians.  People were dragging mattresses, carrying patients down stairs and evacuating themselves.  One poor guy jumped off the second story balcony to the ground.  The hospital evacuated itself within 5-10 minutes.  What had been ordered was now chaos.  Yet they still thought of each other, and many went into the building over and over to help bring patients down who could not stand or move secondary to their injuries.

One man came up to us as we were talking and explained “You do not understand.  We are Haitian.  We know what an earthquake does.  My mother and brother died in Haiti, and I am here with my sister who is hurt.  I have nothing but what is in this backpack.”  After Robin assured him (in Creole) that we weren’t mad, and that we didn’t blame them for anything, he seemed to relax.  How is it possible for us to even come close to comprehending what these people went through?  Forcing them back into the building would cause panic. Yet something had to be done.  Fortunately, many of the patients had brought their charts with them (which they understood were important) and the doctors and nurses went around with tape to put on arms and foreheads, identifying where each patient went and re-triaging.  Many who were injured had wounds reopen or had lost dressings, as in the panic to get outside, they were brought any way possible out to the courtyard.  Robin, Chris and Erika were helping to organize the patients, Darren and Laura were triaging and taking care of patients, and I stayed in the Pharmacy to help pass out drugs and antibiotics to those who needed them.  It was a hard two hours, yet God gave us the strength, after already having a 12 hour day, to go on for 2 more hours serving the patients.

Through this all, the Haitians began to calm down and starting singing hymns of praise.  Though none of us could understand, it was still amazing to see them call on God in their time of need to protect them.

At 9 pm, when things were beginning to calm down, we left for the hotel.  On the way there, another small aftershock was felt.  We were not at the hospital, but apparently the second earthquake was stronger and threw everything into panic again.   Luckily, most everyone was still outside as we were planning on cleaning the rooms prior to bringing people back in.  We hope and pray that everything is still going well, and that the patients are recovering.  A new team of doctors came in the day we left to stay for two weeks.  I overheard that the hospital may be running for the next six months, since there are very few places to send all these patients who will need instructions on walking, further surgeries, and prosthesis.

It was amazing to see God working at this hospital.  All of the Americans I talked to felt called by God to be there and help His people.  The amount of supplies, medication, food and time donated by those around us was incredible.  So many of these doctors have practices at home that they willingly leave to serve others in their time of need.

I was talking to Dr Neil and he said his church in Kentucky had a vision five years ago to build this orphanage, and it was virtually completed, though no kids were there yet.  How amazing that the facility was there to provide for the needs of the people!  This is a tragedy in Haiti, but God is at work, turning some of what is evil into good.

Many praises to God and his faithfulness in providing.  We had food, a place to stay every night, good fellowship, and a purpose to be where He wanted us.   I could feel the peace transcend what I was doing as a result of the many prayers put forth by many of you.  Thank you for your support and for supporting Makarios that we were able to bring supplies and aid to those who needed it.

Other blogs with more information about where we were.

http://haitifooddrive.blogspot.com/  (one of the docs there giving insight about what was going on)

http://www.cotni.org/articles/306-good-samaritan-hospital-in-jimani-an-overview