Medical Missions

This week has been full of new people, places, and challenges. We started medical work on Sunday at the childrens home which I previously blogged about. On Monday we traveled to Soline, Nazon in Port-au-Prince to work at a clinic that has been shut down for quite sometime. When we arrived there were dozens of people lined all around the building waiting for medical care. We were told many of them had been waiting in line for more than two hours. It was a challenge to bring in all the suit cases full of medical supplies due to the mass amounts of people but we eventually got set up and started our work.

 Interesting case. This man claimed after he had received a vaccination his shoulder resulted in this. The doctor thought it could be a tumor. Unfortunately we couldn't do anything for him but refer him to a surgeon and offer him pain medication.

 These are the 3 medical students from West Virginia. Carly, Eric,  and Rebecca.

 Rebecca working triage with me.

 Beautiful little girl and her mother.

 She's only 1 and already knows how to be ornery. That is our doctor Rob from West Virginia.

We were lucky enough to have our team equipped with a dentist and dental assistant. It was painful to watch the extraction.

 Alex got to experience being a nurse for a day. I think he liked it.

 The interns.

 Headed home after a hard day of work.

We all discussed the night before to have a triage type of care system. It ended up working really well. We had two triages, one in front and one in back. Our nurses and medical students assessed the patients, patients were sent to the doctor, then sent to the pharmacy for medications. Each room had 1 to 2 translators. We actually had 7 translators on site and ended up treating over 250 patients. The patients came to us with a variety of issues; earthquake victims, acid reflux, vaginal infections, STD's, congestion, malaria, diarrhea, vomiting, abscesses, tumors, arthritis, you name it. We worked from 9am- 4pm both Monday and Tuesday. They were long hot days but completely worth it in the end.

Today we traveled to Camp Kid, a tent city consisting of 5,000 people, which is located 10 minutes from Soline, Nazon. It's a tightly packed community without roads to travel in on. Our team had to transport all medical supplies by hand to the clinic located inside the tent city. It was interesting walking through the community to see how the people have adjusted 18 months after the earthquake. Many of them have adapted to their surroundings and are able to find food, water, and start their own businesses. I even saw a TV set up and working in front of a tent home. I found this quite surprising. Anyway we treated 150 patients today and plan on treating 200 or more people tomorrow.

Walking into the Camp Kid.

 The view from the clinic at the tent city.

 Small portion of our pharmacy.

 Injecting antibiotics.

Colton assessing one of our translators, Elinoel.

All of the teeth extractions for the day!

We are headed back this morning to run the clinic, distribute TOMS Shoes, and hand out rice to the community of Camp Kid. I hope to bring home many new photos and stories to share with all of you. Have a great day!

One more thing: I just wanted to thank Joey, Karissa, and Andrea from Minnesota for all of their hard work and dedication during their two week stay in Haiti (and their team who stayed for one week). We loved finding the surprise at our new house and miss you all very much! It was great meeting you and I hope we can all work side by side in Haiti again some day! Keep in touch!