Local News
Medical workers assist in Haiti
Dr. Guillermo Garcia, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Catherine, Brad Pollington, an OR technician, Cimarron, and Bart Hunt, CRNA, medical workers at St. Catherine, traveled to Haiti to help out in a hospital in Port-au-Prince.
Date: 2/16/2010
Posted by St Catherine Hospital on 2/19/2010
By RACHAEL GRAY
The three were volunteers who offered their time and expertise to treat patients -- many of whom were left with infections and in need of amputations after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti's countryside and leveled much of the capital.
(Rachael Gray/Telegram From left: Brad Pollington, OR technician, Dr. Guillermo Garcia, orthopedic surgeon, and Bart Hunt, CRNA, returned from a 10-day voluneer trip to Haiti Jan. 31 after helping at a community hospital in Port-au-Prince. The three work at St. Catherine Hospital.)
The three men left Jan. 21 and helped in a hospital until they returned Jan. 31.
The men left the U.S. and flew into Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where they drove medical supplies across the border and into Port-au-Prince. The three volunteered at Haitian Community Hospital in Port-au-Prince.
When the men arrived at the hospital what they saw was chaos, they said.
Eighty-five people were outside waiting for treatment and another 85 were inside receiving or about to receive care, they said.
Garcia said the hospital was lined with beds in such close proximity, no one had any privacy or much room.
"It's difficult to give a verbal impression when you have every possible space as bed or grounds. It was packed," Garcia said.
Hunt said the hospital wasn't very well equipped and electricity was something the medical workers didn't count on.
"It's one of those situations where we use what we have and make the most of it," Hunt said.
Hunt said in the hospital, and in Haiti in general, life and death was very real and both were seen simultaneously.
"In the States, we're very isolated from death. We always have ways to deal with it," he said.
In Haiti, it was right in front of his face, he said.
Hunt said he was helping attend to a woman who needed an amputation. She had waited to go through with the procedure because Haitians are sometimes deemed no longer useful if they are handicapped, Hunt said.
Another medical worker took over the amputation and Hunt was called to finish a C-section. While Hunt helped to successfully deliver a baby, the woman who needed the amputation did not survive.
After the men had done their work in the hospital, Pollington said there was visible progress in the hospital --¬ it was beginning to be clean and didn't have the smell of infection inside.
"There was a great feeling of accomplishment, then you see the rest of Port-au-Prince, and it doesn't even scratch the surface," he said.
When he returned home, the experience stayed with him, he said. Upon arriving in Dodge City, Pollington said he had a few tearful moments.
Garcia said, through tears, that re-entering the U.S. was hard. He said the most important and significant thing was to be with his family.
Hunt agreed.
He said he hugged his kids and his wife, and was grateful for family.
Hunt said a memory of leaving Haiti stays with him.
He said he saw a large group gathered at the tarmac of the airport and three Haitian taxis pulled up. He said close to 100 children piled out of them.
The children were orphans who had been cleared for adoption and had a chance at a new life, he said.
Hunt said that moment touched him, and then to see his own children made him thankful he was giving them a good life.
Although the men have returned to their work at St. Catherine, they say their contributions to Haiti and to its people aren't over.
Garcia has started a mobility program which will provide crutches, wheelchairs, sticks, shoes and rudimentary prosthetics for Haitians who have lost limbs.
The program will develop more Thursday as Garcia participates in a teleconference call with other teams around the world who are coming together to start the mobility program.
Pollington said the work to help Haiti is expected to continue.
"We may have left Haiti but we didn't leave them behind," he said.