Haiti: Medical Mission Trip
By Tami Hinckley
I returned from Haiti a month ago, and still, not a day goes by that I don’t think of my time spent there. Haiti is really a study of differences. Flying over, what first draws your eye, is the beauty of the country; lush green landscapes and the blue, almost teal water surrounds the island. But then the plane gets closer to Port au Prince, and the tent cities start to appear. First, just a scattering of blue and white tents on the hillsides, but as we got closer to the city, those scatterings became congestion. Blue, white, brown tarps everywhere, some were tents, others had corrugated metal walls, still others were made of cardboard, with the tarps thrown over as meager protection.
We arrived at the hospital and were shown where to stow our gear, given the
5-cent tour, then put to work. I think I went to sleep that first night
sometime after 1am. Sleep is challenging in Haiti. The heat permeates
everything and you find yourself waking frequently as the moisture pools between
your back and the cot. Finally, it was 5am and time to get ready for the day.
Each morning we had a meeting at 6am, then orthopedic/wound care rounds at 6:30,
followed by the plastic surgery
rounds at 9am. My coworker Kristy and I were the wound care team. We changed
every bandage, every dressing on every patient in the hospital. Each dressing
change would take us at least 30 minutes, longer if we needed to find supplies,
or jury-rig something, which was frequent. Most of the hospital patients had
been through 3-4 surgeries already and they still had more to go. Not all of
these were wounds caused by the earthquake, but families taking advantage of a
government mandate for free health care to take care of long-standing health
issues. (The mandate ended May 2nd)
What struck me most about Haiti was the love of the people. The most important thing to Haitians is relationship. Families were ever present, being the main caregivers for their loved ones. Orphans that were hospitalized were cared for by the families of the patient in the next bed. The hospital provided one meal a day to patients. I witnessed families sharing their meager meals with others in the same room, often times sharing to the point of each person getting one large spoonful of rice and beans. In Haiti they have little to begin with and here they are sharing to the point of being left with almost nothing. Our translators, who were not paid and had no money themselves, would bring fresh mango, papaya, coconut, and grapefruit daily to the volunteers.
After the second day as we started to get to know the people better, Kristy and I became more relationship-oriented and less task-oriented. So many smiling faces, so much love in the face of tragedy. One day we were changing the dressings on a young man that had been electrocuted while climbing a mango tree. He grabbed the hidden wires and the electricity exited his buttocks. He could only lie on his stomach. The wounds covered his entire buttocks and the skin graft donor sites were on his upper thighs. His pain was so great that he was screaming. He was on a fentanyl patch, percocet and morphine. Despite the medication, he was still feeling everything. The room he was in was silent except for his cries. During a dressing change I crawled around the family gathered at his bed and grabbed his hand. In mostly English, I kept speaking to him, trying to soothe his pain, letting him know how much longer it would be. For 30 minutes I sat on that floor holding his hand. When it was all over, he smiled, he thanked me, his family thanked me. I spoke to the doctors before we left and asked them to sedate him prior to his dressing changes. I found out from the next team that they did indeed start using sedation prior to his dressing changes and things went easier for him. I still see his face frequently when I close my eyes.
I worry about Haiti. They were a broken country prior to the earthquake and now they have so many more challenges to overcome. The rubble from the buildings just sits where it fell because there is nowhere else to put it. Electricity to the city is turned off at 7pm every night. Armed guards are present everywhere. Crime in the tent cities is rampant with violence against women and children on the rise. But despite all my worries, I think that the nature of the people of Haiti will carry them through this ordeal.
I look forward to presenting my slide show in the near future and sharing even more of my experience with you. Thank you for your support.
Tami Hinckley
