Day 5: Team Restore

We started our second day here by attending the daily morning "devotional" at the hospital. It is a short religious service and is attended by most of the hospital staff. June introduced our group and we were all wearing our project Haiti t shirts. We had several new evals but most of the morning was spent following up and treating the roughly thirty patients we met yesterday. There are roughly 60 patients in the hospital right now but not all are appropriate for therapy. We were able to fit the young man with a spinal cord injury with a brace and get him up for the first time. We walked with a patent who had been in bed since November and also worked with a girl and two boys all under the age of nine. After a lunch of Haitian spagetti and freshly fallen mangos from our front yard, we were privileged to observe surgeries in the afternoon. We split into pairs and one group treated while the other observed surgery. The surgeon, from the u.s., spoke in creole with the Haitian team. They do the very best they can with leas than ideal surgical conditions. Both surgeons at the hospital will be leaving this week and we are not sure how all the needs of the patients will continue to be met. We have several translators with us whenever seeing patients and we are doing our best to learn simple phrases in creole. A nurse and translator also have been following us to assist and learn because there is no rehab staff to work with or get patients up when there are no volunteers here. We are all still healthy and enjoying the experience. Ashley even survived her first experience with a tarantula! Thanks for the continued support! - michael