|
Help for Haiti
Date: February 22, 2010
Dr. Melvin Thomas has a long-standing relationship with missionaries in Haiti and on more than one occasion has lead medical missions there, but his mission gained a new sense of urgency when a devastating earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, killing an estimated 200,000 people.
Dr. Thomas, Dr. Adrian Long and Dr. Margaret Thorhallsdottir already were scheduled to fly to Haiti on January 30. The earthquake didn’t change their plans, but it did change their mission. The physicians had planned to help poor families in the town of Ouanaminthe by providing basic primary care services along with nutritional supplements. Now, they would be helping Haitians who were acutely injured in the earthquake, and they knew they would need additional medical supplies.
Dr. Thomas contacted Public Relations to get the word out that donations of vitamins and basic medications were needed, and Dr. Long contacted Jody Smith, assistant director of the Floyd Medical Center pharmacy, to see if the pharmacy could provide any assistance. While regulations prevented the pharmacy itself from sending medicines with the physicians, employees in the pharmacy quickly realized an opportunity to provide help for Haiti in a very tangible way.
Within two days pharmacy staff members donated nearly $400–enough money to purchase 70 pounds of adult and children’s vitamins, prenatal vitamins, over-the-counter pain medications, First Aid ointments, inhalers, anti-hypertensive medicines and other supplies to be used by the physicians in Haiti.
“Once we learned they were going, we asked what kind of things they were looking for,” said Ann Baird. “We just kind of put the word out in the department and the employees just started contributing money.”
In addition to the pharmacy response, Dr. Thomas said he receive help from numerous other departments.
“The obstetrics and nursery departments put together a nice little package,” he said. “The Urgent Care in Calhoun contacted me and sent some stuff in. Joy Jones, Sue Lavigne, Cynita Boykin in food services, Deborah Craven in compliance, Susan K. Wright all helped. There were several others. I hesitate to mention names because so many people helped. We had a great response.”
The assistance was both welcome and needed, Dr. Long said.
When the physicians arrived in Haiti, the need was overwhelming.
The mission founder, Hughes Bastien, would drive 12 hours to Port-au-Prince twice a week to pick up patients in need of medical care and bring them to the mission in Ouanaminthe, where the Floyd physicians worked alongside other physicians to care for them.
The physicians worked at the mission for two days, then, recognizing the needs were much greater closer to Port-au-Prince, relocated their efforts. They spent one day in Milot, a town near Cap-Haitien and two days in Fort Liberte.
“When we went to Cap-Haitien, we tried to go to a refugee camp set up in an auditorium, but learned of a tent hospital outside a main hospital in the town of Milot that the U.S. military was operating. The military was flying people in from Port-au-Prince to get help.”
The needs were great: crush injuries, fractures, patients who needed amputations, patients who were paralyzed as a result of their injuries.
“It was like a mini tent city, five or six tents with 40 or 50 people in each tent, and everybody was in some kind of traction device to set fractures, had amputations or were paralyzed. It touched every emotion,” Dr. Long said.
“The people were just in a state of uncertainty. You could sense they didn’t know what direction they were going to be going in. They were just wondering what kind of care they were going to have now and in the future.”
Throughout the week, Dr. Long said he heard patients talk of their loss and devastation.
“We kept hearing multiple stories from so many who lost family members, nephews, parents, children. It was so much more than I anticipated.”
The medicines the Floyd physicians brought with them proved invaluable to meet both current and future needs.
“We used a lot of the medicines,” Dr. Long said. “Every patient we saw, we gave them a month’s supply of vitamins and had them return in a month for more, due to their nutritional state. We left what we didn’t use in two different places so they could distribute them to the patients there,” he said.
Dr. Long said he will be forever changed by this experience, encouraged by the show of support he received at home and motivated by the overwhelming need he witnessed in Haiti.
“It definitely makes you appreciate what you have, the resources you have around you when in an emergency situation, and it has definitely opened my heart to the Haitians,” he said.”With the continued support they are going to need, we already are talking about going down there next year to continue this. We are definitely trying to help direct our efforts and energies to those in need.”
|
