Haiti earthquake diary: Not as bad as Rwanda?
| Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Monday, Jan. 25
Men and women in International Medical Corps T-shirts and blue scrubs are all over The Plaza Hotel, where they鈥檙e staying 鈥� and scattered throughout the sprawling grounds of the University Hospital, a.k.a. HUEH (H么pital de l'Universit茅 d'茅tat d'Haiti)
Dr. Anil Menon, a young emergency and medical wilderness medic from Stanford, Calif., is thrilled to be part of the team. It鈥檚 his first time on an international mission, and talking to him I feel his enthusiasm. It鈥檚 refreshing. Uplifting.
鈥淭his is why I went into medicine,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 want to make a difference, and this situation provides me the opportunity.鈥�
The work he鈥檚 been doing for the last two weeks has changed. It went from pure overload of trauma cases to organizing the intake of patients. He misses the hands on; now he鈥檚 doing almost all logistical and administrative stuff.
Meanwhile, Dr. Brian Crawford is totally hands on. Today, he goes out with a small crew to Bolosse, on the western side of the capital, at the beginning of the road to Carrefour. I haven鈥檛 been on this part of the road since I arrived here just after the quake. It鈥檚 as awful as ever, full of water, sewage, and garbage.
If the earthquake made it work any better, I can鈥檛 see it. Merchants and resident still have to wade through the muck, as do the pigs.
The clinic where Dr. Crawford is working today is the Centre de Formation pour L鈥橢cole Fondamental 鈥� the oldest teaching college in the country. People inside the school courtyard have it a lot nicer than some of the other displaced I鈥檝e seen. Their tents and tarps are scattered among small banana trees and green grass. A slight reprieve from the brutal sun and now proverbial dusty air elsewhere in Port-au-Prince.
The residents have chosen leaders to take on various challenges facing their community: Health, food, water, housing. Impressive.
Crawford saw between 60-70 people yesterday. There is at least twice that many in line now.
Back at HUEH, another doctor says this is not his first overseas mission. He鈥檚 been to Somalia, Pakistan, the 2004 tsunami (Banda Aceh, Indonesia), and this is among the worst.
But Lucy, a young dynamic EMC nurse, says Rwanda has it all over Haiti.
If Rwanda has been able to right itself after its civil war and genocide, I have to believe that there鈥檚 hope for Haiti, too.
