-We currently have 25 medical volunteers and 4 staff in Haiti. This number will move up and down in the coming days as volunteers and staff leave and others replace them. Our medical volunteers include surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, other physicians, and administrators.
-Our team continues to work at The King’s Hospital, a 350-bed Christian hospital in Port au Prince. This hospital was scheduled to open next month, so when we began our work there, it was not quite ready for occupancy. The team has been working hard to get plumbing and electricity going. Structural engineers have certified the hospital as sound after the earthquake and the recent 6.0 aftershock. Our surgeons are working in 3 operating rooms. They’re saving lives every day. The surgery is not easy. There is minimal equipment. No x-ray machines. And, a lot of the surgery involves amputations, which no one likes to do but which is unavoidable in many of the cases. The 82nd Airborne has established a base within a 3-minute walk of The King’s Hospital and has helped us establish a security perimeter to safeguard the hospital at night. The U.S. military has also given us a portable anesthesia machine.
-We’re sending some of our volunteer surgeons to help develop and strengthen orthopedic surgery work in other hospitals. We’re now accepting post-surgery patients from the U.S. Comfort, which is located in the harbor and is absolutely full of surgery patients. We’re also working in close cooperation with a UN hospital and various other medical facilities in the area.
-We have established a clinic at a Baptist seminary campus, where more than 4,000 homeless people have come for shelter. We’ve also been asked to establish mobile clinics at many churches in the area because these churches are centers for care and assistance to people living in one of the more than camps that have sprung up for the 1.5 million people who have lost their homes.
-An Evangelical Covenant Church (Hope Community Church) and others in Ft. Lauderdale purchased, received and prepared items to be shipped on the flights between Ft. Lauderdale and Port au Prince. These partners, whom we have never met, were a great blessing and answer to prayer.
-We have airlifted donated and purchased emergency medicines and medical supplies that are valued at $1.2 million to Port au Prince. On Monday morning, a donated plane will land with another 4,500 pounds of orthopedic equipment, medicines, medical supplies and a portable VSAT (satellite communications equipment that will provide high-speed access to the Internet from our office in Port au Prince.) A shared staff effort has also enabled us to procure a donated portable X-ray machine and a c-arm X-ray machine. These machines are valued at more than $100,000. They’re too large to be moved by plane but should arrive by boat in Haiti in 1-2 weeks.
-Over the next few weeks we will be looking at our long term response focusing on several areas of health programming: provision of medical services through volunteer teams, health systems development, emergency health, community health and education, child survival activities, capacity building and medical training, gift-in-kind medicines, supplies and equipment donations.
-A story from Marlene Minor (VP Communications): A pregnant woman and her husband came to The King’s Hospital for surgery on the woman’s leg. They were carrying the shorts of their 4-year-old son, who had been killed in the earthquake. After the woman successfully completed surgery, she was recovering in a cot in the courtyard when she went into labor and had to be taken back into the hospital for delivery. The husband remained in the courtyard, weeping and holding his son’s shorts in the air. With God’s blessing, the delivery was successful, and the woman delivered a healthy baby girl, whose name in Creole means “Jesus.”
-From Dr. Dan Diamond’s blog: “Dr. Marlene [the medical director for a partner group] took us to see what was left of her house. It was as if her home had been cut in half with a giant knife. Half of the house was there, but the other half was completely collapsed. Her father buried inside. We prayed for her as we stood there in the middle of the street with downed power lines all around. She was a very strong woman, filled with the power of God. She had lost her home, lost her father, had gone from living in a big house to living in a tent, and yet she was looking beyond herself to the needs of those she served. I stood there and cried.”
From World Relief International:
-Haiti’s local churches are rising to the challenge in their quake-ravaged communities – feeding and providing shelter for thousands of the most vulnerable survivors.
-By the weekend, four local churches partnering with World Relief will be feeding 9,500 people hot meals – rice and beans for lunch and porridge for dinner – every day.
-A local church in the Carrefour area has opened its doors to those who lost their homes, providing refuge for nearly 6,000 people in the community. Stepping out in faith, Pastor Jean Bathard Anthony began feeding the people with what few supplies he had. Now World Relief has come alongside Pastor Jean, assisting with food and water.
-On Wednesday, World Relief carried out an assessment in Leogan – a quake-damaged area outside Port-au-Prince that has not yet received significant aid. Building on existing relationships with local churches in Leogan, World Relief plans to expand response efforts into the area soon.
-Water pumps have arrived in Port-au-Prince, and World Relief and a local partner plan to drill bore holes and install the submersible pumps to provide clean water for King’s Hospital. At King’s, World Relief doctors have been working around the clock alongside medical personnel from the United States and Haiti to save lives.
