Team Rehab Day 5

Day 5 This morning we had our last breakfast at SEED until our return on Friday. We packed up our bags to prepare to drive to Hopital Lumiere in Bonnefin. June came to pick us up and we soon found out we would an ambulance (making our own American/Haitian tap tap version) for transporting 3 patients from Les Cayes to Bonnefin. We picked up the first patient at the hospital in Les Cayes. He is a young man (Beneswa) that was injured in the earthquake, had an abcess removed from his knee, something grew back(no one knows), the knee is severely infected and he will probably have to have the leg amputated. We had a cot set up in the land cruiser for his transportation and he and his mother and all his belongings were loaded up. We then picked up at the clinic an older woman with an displaced humeral fracture and her grandson and another younger boy with a leg deformity (a tiny leg with no development of his lower leg and foot who might be getting evaluated for possible amputation). We packed up into the land cruiser, June driving, Donna (a journalist with us for the week) and Sarah up front and Ali D sitting on the cot with the patient (Beneswa) facing Allie with their legs crossing and squished next to Greg who had one of the patients bag of clothes on his lap who was next to the older woman with the humeral fx (who got car sick and threw up) who was next to her grandson who was next to the 3rd patient with the congenital deformity leg who was at the end of the cot where the first patients mom was sitting on the cot with all his belongings in a large bucket. Hope you guys can picture this. We arrived at Bonnefin and met other medical volunteers who where in the guest house. Greg will be staying in the boys room at the guest house for the hospital and the girls and June and Donna were all checked into a Hotel. We toured the hospital, treated a couple patients then had lunch. After lunch, team rehab asked one of our translators (Jimmy) if we could go watch a surgery. Jimmy walked us right over to the OR and we put on masks and hair nets and were walked right into one of the operating rooms. We observed an orthopedic surgery of a 16 yr old boy (Moise) who fell out of a tree and broke his femur. The surgery could be described no other than intense, the patient was awake and given a nerve block and a valium through the surgery for pain. Since there are no HIPPA laws here in Haiti, anyone is allowed to take photos. During the surgery, Allie and Sarah were asked to donate blood and left the OR with a nurse anesthetist. Greg and Ali D stayed for the full surgery and found the other two just in time to take pics and videos of them giving blood. We met back up with June at admissions where June would help check in the patients we brought here. Back home, we think the American ERs are slow, here, there were people patiently waiting days to get admitted. X-rays where read for our patient Beneawa, and June was the one to tell the patient and his mother that the abscess was cancerous and the leg would need to be removed. Stay tuned for more stories of our adventures in the hospital!