O.K. Our medical team is headed to Haiti April 10th through the 17th! I have gotten my passport and am scheduled to get my immunizations Tuesday. One of my fellow travelers met a physician that specializes in vaccinations and she recommended taking the pills for Typhoid rather than the shot as it is more effective.......Typhoid? I don't even know the signs and symptoms of that one! Back to the books I guess.
I will be contacting all friends and colleagues throughout U.S. to see if they can help assist in fundraising as we have to raise enough money to send ourselves there and have enough food and water to last independently for 7 days. My husband is chuckling as the only camping I truly enjoy is a trip that has indoor lodging.
What an incredible opportunity to help others. I will be talking to a OBGYN physician that just came back for some pointers on how to make it for the week.
We have been told to expect to handle alot of amputations and wounds so we are looking towards supplies for donations in those areas. Although I just took my geriatric boards specialist exam - I didn't really study wounds and amputations as much as I could have. Just when I think I am done studying....Back to the books! I will also be looking for some mentoring in the next few weeks at therapy clinics that can help me get up to speed in those areas so we can be really effective.
Stay tuned!
Kimberly Payne
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Ok updates from a team member from Colorado: We are staying at a compound called Quisqueya. Check out relief.quisqueya.org. It was originally a school, but now is also a tent-camp for medical personnel. They will provide tents, 2 meals per day and do the logistics sending us out to clinics, etc. I think they also do transport to- and from the clinics per day. They recommend that we bring our own inflatable mattress, bedding and pillow. I'm planning on buying cheap stuff and leaving it there. They charge $50 per night per person so $300 for the 6 nights we will be there. From the doc's that I have talked to, mosquito protection is a very high priority. We will be bringing netting, dunking our clothes in permetherin and bringing a ton of bug spray with DEET. We will also be taking malaria pills.Quisqueya has electricity and as far as I know, most clinic sites and all hospitals have outlets, too.
ReplyDeleteQuisqueya is a secure complex and docs coming back say they felt very safe there.
incidental recommendations? -get shots, let me know if you need Rx. Brush up on French if you know any (they provide translators if we need them, though). Fund-raise as there will always be things to buy and supply.
Then I looked up the hospital that we will be initially assigned to and thank goodness for that hospital! This comes from an article from the internet:
THE NEED TO SAVE CDTI HOSPITAL
ReplyDeleteBy health4haiti
I arrived with Julie Manley and Roger R. Jean-Charles, both MD’s, at CDTI Hospital in Port-au-Prince 5 days after the earthquake to find a busy hospital that had been running at full throttle since the disaster had struck on the afternoon of January 12th. 2 modern operating rooms and a GI suite upstairs and 5 tables in the emergency room downstairs were all occupied with surgeons and anesthesiologists busily working away.
They had modern x-rays and ultrasound!
I had never seen such a modern hospital in Haiti.
So how did it come to be there?
A few days later, when we had a chance to catch our breath, I accompanied the principle owner, Dr. Reynold Savain on a tour of the hospital with a structural engineer who was inspecting its damage. Dr. Savain told me that he and his colleagues had wanted to do something for the first time in Haiti: To build a modern hospital that could be found in any country, but, built by Haitians, run by Haitians. It was obvious that they had accomplished this. Very impressive. Soon after opening a couple of years ago the hospital had become the favorite of the embassy staffs and foreign nationals in the country.
Then complete disaster hit. Dr. Savain, his colleagues, and his CDTI Hospital (stands for Center for Diagnosis, Treatment, and Imaging) were suddenly one of the only resources left in the city which could handle severely injured patients from this massive casualty of biblical proportions. It had survived essentially intact largely because of it’s recent construction to modern building standards. Due to safety concerns from some small damage to the foundation of the bed tower no patients were put in the rooms. (Instead a tent ward was set up in front of and behind the hospital.) Likewise, the CT Scan and Interventional Radiology equipment were not known to be safe to use without damaging them, but the modern OR’s, x-ray department, and emergency room were fully functional.
As the magnitude of the disaster began to unfold itself it became quite clear that the hospital would soon run out of fuel for the generators, supplies, medicines, and x-ray films. Dr. Savain knew he had to keep the hospital doors open. Literally hundreds of doctors, nurses and paramedics from the U.S., France, and elsewhere kept the surgeries going. It fast became known amongst us arriving surgeons and anesthesiologists as THE place to be in the city, if you wanted to use the skills that you brought to help, that is.
Dr. Savain has worked day and night. He has now managed to keep CDTI open for over a month, and is going broke (it is suspected by most of us that he is borrowing to keep the hospital open). He is also paying for the concrete and steel repairs for the foundation of the bed tower himself, to get patients inside and out of the sweltering tents.
Looks like a good place to start. As a PT, I was told we will be doing a lot of post-amputation care, trying to keep remaining limbs functional so they can use prosthetics eventually. Taping and strapping, exercise instruction etc.
Hangar Orthotics and Prosthetics by Grandview has allowed me to shadow them in the coming weeks to get up to speed thanks to the Orthotist Heather who also told me Hanger is sending weekly shipments of orthotics and prothetics to Haiti from around the U.S.
So alot more information!
Stay tuned!
Kimberly Payne
I shadowed Megan and all the team at Hangar Orthotics and they were so helpful in giving me an introduction to prosthetics so that I can problem solve once we get there.
ReplyDeleteI just got a email from someone I went to high school with in Washington D.C. who was there for 5 weeks dealing with security issues that has some recommendations for us...that is definitely one conversation I will be paying close attention to as he knows the ins and outs and the contacts we need to make it work most effectively...amazing how closely we are connected-six degrees of separation coming to life.
I spoke to my friend Justine who is running the CDTI hospital there. She is frustrated at the lack of macro-funding from US-AID, is trying to get aid to keep the hospital going with diesel fuel, heavy equipment, staff, etc. Luckily, she spoke to Sean Penn yesterday, and he will be getting her enough Diesel for the week and hopefully some more regular funding.
ReplyDeleteI asked her about supplies. She said Diflucan, Metronidazole, scabies treatment, diapers, AA batteries, Xeroform guaze, Stethoscopes, Otoscopes, BP monitors, Fetal dopplers, ACE wraps. Little trikets for kids will be good but she said we will be swarmed with kids so bring A LOT. She emphasized that we need sunscreen, doxycycline, DEET, and galloshes. No open toed shoes - don't know what we might step in. We need to have water filtration / iodine and some gatorade or other powder to help flavor the water afterwards. We should also plan on bringing snack food for lunches. Quisqueya will provide breakfast and dinner.
She says that Quisqueya complex is as safe as possible and the clinic sites are safe. We'll just make sure we stay together.
Read up on diagnosis and treatment for Typhoid, Malaria and scabies.
I'd like to start really concentrating on supplies this week so we have time to order, receive and pack everything we will bring.
Take care!!
Rachel
Hello all, check out the Quisqueya blog - they put up a new posting which is inspiring! I am so glad that we have experienced PT's with us!
ReplyDeleteRachel