Today is Sunday and we are finding our groove here at the Medishare hospital. This hospital was actually next door to the airport for some time until it was moved a short distance to the hospital run by the Bitar Brothers - Bernard Mevs in Port Au Prince.
Yesterday, we arrived around noonish and were hearded to the waiting vans at the airport. Before getting to the vans however, we made our way into a large building where we waited for our suitcases to delivered (tossed into a pile). Luckily, my suitcase was easy to spot - black & while poca dots with a red ribbon! It was a bit hectic getting through customs and the baggage claim but we did it! It was even more crazy getting out of the parking lot. Luckily we had Big Dave with us to get us through the chaos! No one messes with Big Dave!
We drove through PAP and saw many tent cities and some of the destruction. Then we pulled into the Bernard Mevs Hopsital - Medishare's partner and current home away from home. It looked strangely familiar and then I realized we had toured this exact hospital in Nov 2007 with Physicians for Peace! A lot has changed! It has come a long way and has two functioning operating rooms, an ED, medical surgical units A (spinal cord unit) & B (ER, ICU, and shorter term patients), peds, and a NICU/PICU. It has the only functioning ICU in all of Haiti.
We had a welcome meeting with the Bitar Brothers and staff. Then we divided into our departments, toured, and then were assigned to a room. We have 8 folks in our room with our PT team all sleeping on cots which nearly touch. We also share the room with 2 EMTs. We were able to sleep quite well last night!
We have an interesting crew with Alice who is a PT from Ireland, Hanna who is an OT from CA, Parisa also from the US. Allyson is the PT in charge. She works with Medishare as the permanent employee. Jason, another PT with Medishare will come tomorrow. The newbies include Sandy - a PTA , Becky, and myself! We seem to be a good crew!
Yesterday and today we spent time working with patients after getting settled. We focused on the patients in Med Surg A which holds the patients with spinal cord injuries. (There was a neuro surgeon here last week - hence the large number of patients with spinal cord injuries being seen for therapy this week!) We also worked in peds where there are a number of kids with s/p trauma injuries, hydrocephalus and other maladies. I even did a nasogastric feeding of a preemie in the PICU who barely weighed 2 pounds! She is a little angel and quite a little fighter!
The rest of the week I am scheduled to work the outpatient clinic with Sandy. Becky is working wound care, and the others are doing inpatient care. In the afternoons we will assist with what ever needs to be done. We also do a great deal of teaching the Haitian PT techs.
Today, my translator from last Feburary's trip to Jimani at the Haitian-DR border MASH hospital stopped by to visit! How great to see Vangine again! We are not allowed to go outside the gates and luckily Vangine was able to convince the guards that he knew Sue PT who was his friend inside! They let him in for a short visit. It would have been fun to have Vangine work with me again - but there are official interpretors here and we must honor the system that is in place. It was great to see Vangine nevertheless! Several other patients from Jimani may be stopping by. We will see what happens. Tomorrow Wilfrid - a former patient of mine from Jimani is now a PT tech here and he will be working with me in the outpatient clinic tomorrow so it will be pretty exciting!
All is well and we are taking it one step at a time!
Piti piti swazo fe nich! Little by little the bird builds it nest!
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