Hôpital Albert Schweitzer
Due to the expertise developed over its 54 year history, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer
Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, located 40 miles NW of Port-Au-Prince was able to withstand the recent devastating earthquake and is currently operating with full staff helping victims. With mass casualty protocols in place, the medical staff is evaluating each patient, performing diagnostic tests and delivering life saving care. Due to the expertise developed over its 54 year history, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti (HAS) is one of the few institutions positioned to provide timely hospital care for the injured. As the flow of people urgently seeking care increases over the next few days and weeks, our resources will be pushed to the breaking point. It is critical that we receive support to help us continue with our mission.
Ever since early this morning, a steady stream of vehicles, mainly the open-back pickups which serve as public taxis on Haiti's roads, has come to the front of the hospital. In the back are one or two people, their legs or arms covered in bandages or clothes. HAS security staff rush out to the truck with a backboard or gurney, and bring the patient inside to be triaged by the emergency team.
Now, in early afternoon, a crowd of over 200 people are outside the hospital, friends or neighbors of injured patients. They rush to the arriving trucks and try to help to carry the new patients inside. Occasionally, the combination of the person's injuries and the truck ride are more than can be sustained by the patient, and the family members, with great wailing, adapt to the shock of the loss of a loved one. A sound system has been set up outside, so that family members may be called into the hospital to meet with doctors.
Each patient is brought into the Observation Unit and quickly evaluated. Some are sent to for an X-Ray or lab test while others are taken immediately to the holding area outside surgery, where both operating rooms are being used full time.
All beds have been pressed into use, and still there are patients on benches. Gradually, some of the early arrivals and less injured are prepared for discharge.
Systems at HAS are working well; preparation and practice have paid off. The greatest resource, however, is the dignity and grace of people who have suffered a great shock and sometimes tragedy, and remain calm and show concern not just for the people with whom they have come here, but for others as well.
This is the most serious challenge ever faced by HAS in its 54-year history, and while we are currently coping with the onslaught of the injured, we urgently need support.
At this moment, we don't have the capability to accept material goods or personnel. Our greatest and most urgent need is for funds to pay overtime wages to our dedicated staff, and to buy replacement medicines and supplies.
We will update the www.hashaiti.org website with news of relief efforts. To make a donation that will have immediate impact, please go to www.hashaiti.org.
Thank you again for the many expressions of help and caring that are coming from around the globe.
The influx has been handled professionally by the all-Haitian medical staff and nurses - although all available gurneys and benches are occupied, patients are triaged and staged along the corridor to the operating suite and lab/radiology. Families and friends wait anxiously outside, while the necessary care is provided calmly and quietly.
Among the most serious impacts has been the loss of communications as the cell phone towers collapsed; everyone in this area has family in Port-au-Prince, with no contact. Several people left last night for PauP, taking public transport as far as possible, and then prepared to walk several miles into town to check on family members and to report back to anxious relatives.
Out here in the valley, we experienced only minor tremors, but people poured out of their houses onto the roads. As I write this, I am feeling a very small aftershock. Major cell towers are out and only Haitel has a signal. Only a few calls are getting through to PauP, where the radio says that many large buildings have been affected. Our twelve new residents and all physicians all have families in PauP, but can't find out how they are.
You may be getting better news from CNN or Fox than we are; we will continue to monitor as best we can, but we are afraid that the daylight will bring sad information from Port au Prince. Earthquakes are rare here - only the older people realized what was going on. Since the hospital has lights and electric current, the front is crowded with people listening to radios and sharing rumors.
Unfortunately, Haiti has a long experience with natural disasters, including floods, hurricanes and mudslides; each one reinforces our awareness of the fragility of the formal social service system, and the strength of the informal systems, where communities and families come together to care for victims and to ensure that the most seriously injured come to HAS and other facilities.
We are grateful for the many messages of support; time and demands don't allow for personal answers, but be assured of our appreciation. As is usual in disasters, we have sufficient doctors and nurses, a full stock of medications for the most part, and we are fortunate to have not lost power or water. We appreciate your concern, and will continue to offer updates as time allows.
Ian Rawson and the HAS staff
Please donate to the HAS Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund by clicking HERE.
Since 1956, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti (HAS) has provided vital health and economic recovery resources to the inhabitants of Haiti’s Artibonite Valley. HAS has always been more than a hospital—it works with Haitians to revitalize and improve the health and well-being of the over 300,000 inhabitants of that region. As a hospital program, the HAS Haiti Timber Re-Introduction Project (HTRIP) is unique amongst reforestation efforts. The project intends to have a range of positive impacts on people’s lives in this region: improved economic stability, and the basis for combating the environmental problems that lead to malnutrition and other serious health conditions. We haven't talked much about HTRIP on this blog, but that's just because we're so busy with this exciting project. Since its inception in 2005, HTRIP has become increasingly effective, despite its relatively small budget. This past summer, HTRIP added 5 new communities to the program, including over 1,050 graduates of its education programs. Now, there is a total of 35 participating communities involved in HTRIP, who have grown over 80,000 seedlings!
To boot, a pair of young filmmakers recently travelled to Haiti, and made a short film about the project, which we hope will be ready to show you in early 2010!
We recently received some seasonal updates from our collaborators in Deschapelles. Here's what they have to say!
Since October, our reforestation project has spent a good deal of time collecting data on the project's progress to date, throughout all the 35 participating communities. At present, we're really analyzing where we ought to focus our efforts for the coming year and beyond. Though this is a tedious effort, it still is not as exhausting as carving out terraces in the hills or building rock retaining walls as we do at the beginning of each year.
Most days, our team of about a dozen technicians splits into smaller groups, and we ride up to the more remote communities on motorcycles or ATV's, or occasionally (as distance and road quality dictate) our Landcruiser. Having arrived, we meet with the local community leader and walk with them to the plots. IT's normal to find only two or three plots on the side of one steep mountain, and often these plots have a great deal of distance between them.
After reaching each plot, we verify the owner of that plot, as well as the number, quality and length of the walls or canals within it, and the number of trees. Later in the spring, we'll start to measure the growth of each tree in relation to their distance from taller surrounding trees, neighboring canals and retaining walls, and tree mortality.
At this time of year (the dry season) our reforestation plots don't always look as one might normally imagine. The trees are planted earlier in the year, with the other crops the landowner has decided to grow. Young cedars, flamboyants, mahogonies and frenns are planted at one-yard distances from each other, and are interlaced with crops such as squash, peas, corn and millet. Now, in December, the millet is just about ready to harvest, towering with ten-foot stalks, and our seedlings seem lost in the mix. Fortunately, our trees are shaded from the brutal sun by other crops, and many of them will survive this hard season as a result.
In addition to data collection, HTRIP has been continuing regular instruction courses in new and old communities on some of the best strategies for soil conservation and sustainable farming strategies in the face of such harsh climate changes, and such tumultuous landscapes.
Stay tuned for more HTRIP updates in the new year!
See an HTRIP Slideshow here.
More info about HTRIP and other Friends projects here.
