Haiti: Life And Death Decisions
A premature baby and a woman giving birth must share the only oxygen tank in a hospital in the poorest part of Haiti, Port de Paix. Dr. Jon LaPook recounts the harrowing experience.
Latest Posts
Hats Off To Global Rescue
I’ve posted previously about Global Rescue (GR), a company with deployable field rescue teams that can be hired to extract persons who are injured or ill from anywhere in the world.
The company provides medical consultative services, evacuation and extraction services, security advisory services, and other services such as emergency message relay, telephonic interpretation, visa and passport services and local legal referrals. I’m writing now to thank Global Rescue for helping me out in Haiti. Read more »
This post, Hats Off To Global Rescue, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
Leaving Haiti: Small Child – A Triple Amputee – Offers MD A Cracker With His Remaining Hand
We found out today that we are going to ship out tomorrow. My feelings are certainly mixed. There is an incredible amount of work to be done here – we have only contributed to the first wave of what is necessary. This may sound strange, but I cannot remember the details of much of what we did the first three days, when we were functioning on hyperdrive in a battlefield setting. My recollections become detailed after the third day, when we were able to see only four or five patients at a time, and we stopped triaging amputees to the operating room.
Now the hospital has been substantially augmented. Teams of foreign (to Haiti) surgeons have left to go home, because the operations to be performed now are largely orthopedic and plastic surgery, as well as specialty cases. Sadly, there are scores of patients with spinal fractures who are paralyzed, and little can be done for them this far out from the initial injury. Children continue to break our hearts. I had a small child who is a triple amputee offer me his cracker with his remaining hand. One can only pray that the memories he carries of this tragedy are erased swiftly, that he is assisted in his rehabilitation, and that his life improves. All of these will, of course, be hard to achieve. Read more »
This post, Leaving Haiti: Small Child – A Triple Amputee – Offers MD A Cracker With His Remaining Hand, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
Audio: What Is Needed Most In Haiti Now? Live Report From Hospital In Port Au Prince
Dr. Paul Auerbach And Injured Haitian Boy
Dr. Paul Auerbach is the author of the definitive textbook on Wilderness Medicine. Though he’s spent his entire emergency medicine career teaching others how to survive in the wild, even that didn’t fully prepare him for the extraordinary devastation in Haiti. He’d never seen anything like it. He hopes he never does again.
In an exclusive Skype interview with Better Health, Paul describes what it was like “on the ground” during the first week of the disaster. He goes on to explain (in part 2 below) what the current critical needs are, and which organizations and websites volunteers should go to in order to contribute in a coordinated fashion.
[Audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/paulauerbach124102.mp3]
Dr. Val: Do you need supplies?
Dr. Auerbach: We have lots of medications, vaccines, and small supplies. What we need most is a large autoclave to sterilize used OR equipment. Read more »
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