I finally got off the boat for the whole day!!! I have been working in the ICU on the boat and the growing pains are increasing each day, it feels like we are trying to open a hospital from scratch with supplies and charting from the 70's and despite the lack of organization patients keep coming and we try and figure it out!!!! Everyone gets one or two days to go to shore and help out at the clinic sites. We have two sites currently, one is in the UN base so it is enclosed and we operate out of several old concrete buildings. The other is in an enclosed field, I havent been there but i have been told that there are double thick walls with huge coiled barbed wire on top...not quite the welcoming medical clinic I imagined but I guess it helps with crowd control. The surgery schedule was filled on day 2 so now the clinics are offering basic general medical services, dental and optometry services. There are so many people that need surgical care it is upsetting that we cant do more but we do what we can. The question remains...how beneficial what we are doing is and how the Haitians percieve us but I am glad to be here even if it is only for my first post-surgical patient who told me she loves me 8 times this morning!!! Or the cleft palate child who saw his repaired face for the first time this morning and got so excited his whole body was shaking!!!
Today the government and the NGO's are having a gift giving ceremony at the main port in Haiti to commenerate all the palates of food and supplies we brought for the country. They needed some representatives from Project Hope to go so I volunteered and we get to go by air!!! So I must go now and prepare for my morning helicopter ride!!! YeHaaa
1 comment:
what you are doing DOES help...you are simply doing as much as you can for as many people as you can. there will always be more than anyone can do...it's awesome where you are and what you're doing!! good luck with the chaos...I'm surprised you have as much as you do. take care of yourself too!!
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