What Nurses Learn and Found in Haiti

Here is a New Organization to help Haiti.

American nurses who went to Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake that struck the island nation last month say they used common sense, basic nursing skills, and whatever equipment and materials were on hand to care for Haitians .
 Ted Alexander, a retired orthopedic surgeon who was a battalion surgeon during the war was quoted saying:"This is Vietnam — only we had better equipment then." (USA Today)

  
Donna Martsolf RN and her physician husband, Robert, were supposed to be in Haiti for two days when the earthquake hit about an hour after they landed at the Port-au-Prince airport. Because of the quake, the couple never reached their destination. Instead, they spent the first night working with members of Doctors Without Borders in the relief agency’s administrative offices providing first aid to Haitians with broken bones, lacerations and other injuries. They used cardboard boxes and pieces of wood pallets as splints held together with ace bandages to immobilize compound fractures.

Most of the nurses arrived with humanitarian relief agencies or other organizations. (Nursing Spectrum) They were located at hospitals in varying states of disrepair in different parts of the country. Supplies, they say, were not necessarily scarce, they were just stored in locations that were not easily accessible.

Although pallets of supplies were nearby, no one was distributing the material. Healthcare workers dug through the supplies looking for what they needed, leaving the rest in a heap. Also, the equipment was often incompatible because it was sent from different countries, Browning says. There were sets of needleless tubing and tubing that required needles. “We never had enough needles,” he says. “We had to be creative, putting anything we could at the end of the tubing and then taping it all together.”
 

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still living in “sheet cities,” their only shelter made of bedsheets tied to tree branches serving as tent poles – and this is a model of “humanitarian aid delivery”? This camp is on a soccer field on the outskirts of Port au Prince, near the airport.

The number of dead, injured and abandoned are overwhelming. But it pleases my heart to also see huge numbers of humanitarian volunteers, man-hours in time,  and donations. It also makes me proud to see our military being used to assist in this crisis. Good people around the world reach out.

Other countries besides the US also continue helping Haiti recover from the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck there Jan. 12. Here is a look at the tragedy and U.S. efforts, by the numbers: Official death toll: 150,000 Number of homeless: 1 million Meals distributed each day: Nearly 100,000 (As high as this is I'm wondering what the other 900,000 are eating.) Water bottles distributed each day: 308,000 (How large? Enough to give drinking cooking and washing water to the million homeless?) U.S. military personnel: 15,000 Navy and Coast Guard ships: 23 U.S. military aircraft: 120 Patients treated by U.S. officials: 12,600 U.S. government assistance obligated: $379 million Private donations made by Americans: $519 million  (According to news programs I've listened to they need another 2 billion dollars) The humanitarian efforts in Haitti are not given without sacrifice.

Nurses who went to Haiti to help did dirty, hard work amidst scenes of human suffering, that were simply staggering, in enervating heat. One hospital tent’s temperature was measured at 116 degrees. This act of service was not the warm, fuzzy sort, you may imagine from a distance, but a gritty commitment to mourn with those who mourn and heal the physically and emotionally devastated. Several of the task force became sick, some with fevers.  Many had to have IVs. One shock/trauma nurse collapsed in the heat.  For this they volunteered.

I am unable to help financially or physically at this time. I hope that by sharing stories on my nursing blog that it stirs those who can to offer what they can.