CUSON Nurses in Haiti

From Jessica:

From Florence:

From Florence:

From Florence:

The conditions  in each ‘hospital’ [each unit a separate tent]  is fairly awful.    Currently I am housed in a little alcove of a large conference room in a hotel in Port au Prince.   I will try to post a pic asap, but try to imagine a 40 x 20 foot room housing about 20 people, all sleeping in sleeping bags on bed mattresses on the floor, complete with mosquito netting.  Try to imagine the tidiness of a typical teenager’s room and amplify it some.  It does take off the stress of house keeping.

Not so the local population. The tent city is mind boggling.  When it POURS at night, I can only think about all those people sleeping in hardly water proof tents.  It is so easy to understand how disease takes hold so quickly in these conditions. 
The docs and nurses are amazing; everybody hard working and dedicated -  great camaraderie -  must be flexible, adaptable and creative with a good sense of humor- no room for self important types.  Started my first IV yesterday.  The middle aged gentleman with bad asthma, was most gracious about my needing a second attempt to be successful.  His family had a good chuckle.  
 
It really is quite overwhelming and it will take time to express all of it coherently. 

From Alicia:
On my 15th day in Haiti! Back in Port au Prince and working in the ICU. It is very interesting. The tent is hot and crowded and the patients are varied. We have a few cases of cerebral malaria and some
complicated post-op patients. Families participate in care and that is a huge help. They feed and bathe their family members and we have great translators who keep communication flowing.

My first 12 days were spent in the rural clinics of Petite Goave. About a two hour drive down the peninsula from Port au Prince. The drive alone was incredible, a great way to see the country and get some perspective on the work we are doing here.

We were camped in a guest house in Petite Goave and sent out each morning to the clinics in nearby towns. We had some running cold water, electricity for about 6 hours each night, giant insects and a
really phenomenal team of three doctors, including a pediatrician, a pharmacist, an NP (me), a psychiatrist who had lived in Haiti many years ago and a water and irrigation specialist.

My clinic was in Petite Guinea, in a field surrounded by banana trees, bulls, chickens (which wandered through the clinic tent whenever the felt like it) and a giant pig!

Out at the clinics the focus is primary care. Our team worked very closely with the Haitian doctors to establish a system of care that patients could return to for follow up. I learned so much from the
Haitian doctors! Though many of the adult cases were the same things we see in primary care in the US, complicated cases would come in simply because there was no alternative. The clinics really showed the power of what you can accomplish out-patient. Patients that would be admitted in a second in the US had to be cared for right on the spot with the resources we had and it was truly a team effort. We treated malaria, typhoid, severe dehydration and respiratory distress and people came back for follow up and got better. It was really a great feeling.

My 6th day I went to a beautiful beach clinic. It takes an hour by boat to reach this village and we worked in bare feet all day since we had to wade out to the boat. Two little girls with bad burns were
brought in. Living conditions are cramped and cooking is often done over a pile of charcoal on the ground, the boiling water can be knocked over easily. I was very glad for my burn ICU experience that
day. One of the girls I took care of on the beach, the other was brought back with us to the Red Cross hospital in Petite Goave. It turns out they were glad for my burn nurse experience too. I made some
friends in the Red Cross ER and they gave me a stretcher and supplies to debride and dress the burn.

We got to be part of outreach to the community. The next day was our day off, but one of the drivers saw a little girl crying in his tent city. The pediatrician and I got a call and jumped in the car. Back to
see my new friends at the Red Cross ER. They gave us some materials and we casted her broken arm and took her back home. We got paid with a hug from the girl and her mother. It was one of my best days.

It helps to have a giant bag of suckers, crayons, stickers and little stuffed toys. I treated kids with malaria with chloroquine and a sucker. It really makes a big difference.

The IMC clinics are about collaboration. It really paints a picture of the care that is, has been, and will be needed, overwhelming, but not impossible. The Haitian doctors and nurses are excellent and dedicated clinicians, and I am so grateful to have been of some assistance in the long process of establishing a system of care that reaches out to the general population of Haiti.

I have 4 more days and I will be in the ICU. A different perspective. It’s hard, and you see more of the direct effects of the earthquake. Everyday is a challenge around medications and resources and trouble-shooting. But we have re-named the ICU “The Hope Tent.” I’ll leave it at that.

I am so grateful for this experience and so glad to have come.

From Mary P.:
I want to thank the whole Columbia team!

I have just returned from 16 days in Haiti. An amazing experience! I spent the first week working in the ER and the second week in the adult ICU. Both were equally challenging! With limited to no monitoring capabilities, we relied on our basic clinical findings. X-rays were available mostly, labs were less reliable, and portable ultrasound machines helped a number of times. We worked alongside the Haitian nurses and closely with the doctors. We saw cerebral malaria, typhoid, DKA, acute on chronic respiratory disease, strokes, several MVA patients, one burn victim, and many pediatric cases.

The people of Haiti were incredibly gracious and appreciative of all our work. Their resilience was evident each day. They would bring in bedding for their loved ones, bathe them, and feed them. And if a patient in the next bed was in need, they would try to help them as well.

Our translators were incredible. The one in the ICU (a practicing lawyer) has been working there every day since the earthquake. He made a tremendous difference to the patients/families as well as to the staff.

It is wonderful Columbia has teamed up with International Medical Corps in Haiti. I met and worked with so many great healthcare providers! This was an incredible opportunity contributing to hopefully make a difference.

Mary Perry CUSON ‘81

From Alicia:
I am doing well and am the only one from the Columbia crew this time. I went with the team to Petite Goave. The clinic is a tent in a field. We see a lot of pediatric malaria and worms, some wounds, a wide variety of things. I work very closely with the Haitian doctors and they are teaching me so much! We don`t have all the medications or supplies we need but we are able to do a lot.

From Kirsten:

We’ve been home for a little over a week now, and I just want to take a moment to thank CUSON for partnering with IMC and giving us the opportunity to serve in Haiti. I am forever changed by the experience… in the best possible sense! I grew as a practitioner (every shift stretched my capacity to observe, assess, weed out the chaos, and IMPROVISE) and I grew as a person. I learned a little more about what it means to have faith– in my own knowledge and skills, and in that which is beyond my control. Everyone recognized the scale of the tragedy and triumph we were witnessing and playing a part in. I was humbled and grateful and heartbroken and happy all at once. Speaking from my experience in our tent ER, we made a few good saves. We did a LOT of patching up and shipping out. And there was a lot of suffering and death. We all knew that would be part of the deal. We did the best we could with what we had. I was proud of us. We talked to each other and to the patients and families. We worked hard to make the best, most humane decisions. Along with my colleagues, I learned humility in the face of unforgiving circumstances. From the Haitian families, I learned much about the dignity and grace of acceptance.

So to all my colleagues, back in your hospitals and clinics in Chicago and San Fransisco and Houston and Baltimore and here in NYC: I miss you! It was a privilege to work with you. You all taught me so much. We shared some crazy, intense, unbelievable moments. I never imagined working a disaster relief team could be such FUN! Laughter and tears are truly sister emotions. you are all sharp-minded, genuinely good-hearted, warmly social nurses and physicians, and I appreciated your company at the bedside and across the dinner table. I would trust you with the lives of my family. Hopefully we will meet again.