earthquake Reflections-TiGoave

The TiGoave compound wall like many other's now lay along the road. Thankfully none of the buildings collapsed but the cracks in the walls and over doors testified to the strength of the quake. I read that over 70% of the buildings in the town of TiGoave no longer stand. One hotel which had stood through over 100 years of turbulent history in Haiti fell taking 198 lives.

Only three buildings would make up our world of the next days. A dorm which became the storage area, pharmacy and operating/procedure /delivery room. Skillfully bunk beds transformed into pharmacy shelves [so much so that newcomers did not always recognize the primary function of the shelving]. A second dorm served as a dorm. One room for women, one for men and a couple others for storage and newcomers. The third building, a wonderful surprise to me and a blessing to all! A large, beautiful tiled bathroom complete with 3 shower stalls. Secondary to the earthquake-no running water but under the circumstances [and in light of what I had been expecting] buckets and dippers did not equal a hardship.

Tuesday. Clinic day. My fears and worries vanished in the tropical sunlight as the benches borrowed from the chapel filled with patients desiring care. Carefully picked locations in the yard became work stations:orthopedics, dressings, general medicine, pediatrics, eye exams, gynecology, geriatrics. The stations varied from day to day depending on the needs or caregivers present. During the first days as expected more injuries directly caused by falling brinks and debris were treated. Then the complaints changed to more indirect illnesses from stress, lack of medications for chronic problems and sleeping outside with limited food and clean water.

A note about the work stations. At the start of the week I received a few strange looks after voicing warnings about looking up before moving your station into the shade of a nice tree. After a few folks experienced the force of a falling green mango, the team quickly learned to look up and I no longer had to remind folks not to park under a coconut or mango tree.

Each person on the team discovered how they could best help and worked though out the day. Haitian help also joined the team as translators, helping the injured move about, crowd control, nursing care.Miss Karen, a classmate of Vero's showed up and spent days helping with medication dispensing and cleaning of instruments. A second team of Haitian brothers and sisters took care of us by preparing meals, cleaning laundry, shopping for drinking water/pop and keeping the large blue bathroom drum full of water.

Thankfully the team consisted of fast learners as we learned how to conduct a outside clinic, where items were located in the pharmacy and our roles. Each day the crowds grew larger as word spread about our clinic and location. Day one as Dr. Steve and I tried to triage the crowd, picking out the folks to be seen first and who could wait longer we started to hear complaints from the folks who ALL claimed to have been waiting from daybreak.

My mind worked on this problem throughout the evening hours. There must be a better way.