A hospital volunteer provides wound care to an injured child at the American run Community Hospital in Delmas Haiti.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 2 – Less than a month following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, tens of thousands of people still require medical care to treat injuries directly attributable to the disaster. Broken bones take time to heal, and the inevitable infections that attack amputation sites are a constant concern for medical providers. However, what is easy to forget in the wake of the destruction, is that Haiti is a small island country with a population of over 9 million people in an area slightly smaller than the State of Maryland. Everyday medical needs still exist — many on an emergency basis. Haiti must somehow provide medical care to the thousands of injured earthquake survivors as well as its impoverished general population. It appears on the surface to be an insurmountable long-term medical challenge.
By way of comparison, the CDC estimates that in 2005, 115 million Americans visited emergency rooms — a 20% increase in demand over the preceding 10 year period. This increased demand, coupled with a 9% closure rate of trauma centers due to financial loses, contributes to the current health care crisis facing the US.
A major burn case is treated by volunteer medical staff in Haiti. It is unknown how the burns occurred except that they happened at a remote farm location approximately 20 hours before the patient could reach the hospital.
A bright spot in my documentation of the Haiti earthquake aftermath was the day I spent at the Community Hospital in the Delmas neighborhood east of Port-au-Prince. The hospital was staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses from Baptist World Aid and provided everyday medical care to the general Haitian population. While in the volunteer surgical ward physicians from around the world cared for earthquake survivors, the BWA doctors treated accident cases, chronic illnesses, and malnutrition. As an American citizen accustomed to the American way of providing medical care, it was remarkable to witness an ER room operate in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere — without modern technology, in the open air, by volunteer staff due to rotate out in a matter of hours, absent of HMO forms and co-pays, with inadequate equipment and medication — and yet with a level of compassion and efficiency that would rival any metropolitan trauma center in the US. It was an exercise of tireless empathy for a population in need, and no better example of the Hippocratic oath that I could possibly imagine.
The following image gallery features some of the remarkable work performed by the international volunteer medical staff of the Community Hospital in Delmas Haiti. Click here to view.
