A week after a magnitude-7 earthquake hit Haiti, emergency medical teams sponsored by the U.S. government are getting into place in Port-au-Prince.
On Monday, a combination medical and surgical unit was set up on the grounds of a partially destroyed technical school. The facility is adjacent to a soccer field where about 2,000 refugees are living in tents and lean-tos.
Badly Needed Operations
Outside the school compound, a line of people sit or lie on dirty blankets, waiting to be seen.
At the head of the line is a 35-year-old man who says in Creole that a wall fell on him. Four of the fingers on his left hand are cut and very swollen, and he has a big bruise on the back of his head. A wound on his right shoulder is bandaged, but blood is oozing through and flies are beginning to swarm around it. He is waiting to have it redressed.
He says he is very glad the clinic is here; he wants to heal up and go find his family.
The compound, manned by soldiers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, has three emergency rooms and two operating rooms. In one of the emergency rooms, a mother is hugging her young daughter, who has a badly infected wound extending from her right ankle up into the middle of her leg.
The U.S. government has sent five medical teams and one surgical team to Haiti — 265 medical professionals in all. They are now working to establish other make-shift hospitals, like this one, in Port-au-Prince.
Almost immediately after arriving, the surgical team went to work, conducting badly needed operations.
"For the most part, they're traumatic injuries — fractures, burns," says paramedic Peter Allen. "Then there are some medical issues, abdominal injuries."
Operating, After Logistical Delays
The American emergency response teams train throughout the year. They were ready to go when the earthquake hit on Jan. 12. Most arrived in Haiti only two days after the quake, but they were stuck on the grounds of the U.S. embassy for several days as logistics were worked out.
"I think it is going as quickly as it can go, given challenges we're having with our limiting factors of transportation and security," says Andrew Stevermer, who commands the Incident Response Coordination Team for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Patrick Kennedy, who commands part of the surgical unit and helped oversee logistics, says the holdups were to be expected.
"We're used to a lot of bureaucracy and the difficulties of trying to go different places in the middle of a disaster," Kennedy says. "We're used to the 'hurry up and wait' mechanism. That's part of how the system works."
But many of the team members — paid volunteers who left their jobs for two weeks or more — say off the record that they were very frustrated by all of the delays.
Regardless, Kennedy and others say they are happy to finally be set up and helping.
"I'm very glad we're here," Kennedy says.
Now that they're up and running, they have a lot of work ahead.
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