I have had the vaccinations, got the anti-malarials and am beginning to get ready for my trip with a team from Halifax to Haiti for a medical mission to the Bernard Mevs hospital in Port-au-Prince Haiti. Time to start the obligatory blog!!
This all began a couple of months ago when Dave Amirault. an orthopaedic surgeon at the Halifax Infirmary, asked if I wanted to join a team they were getting together to go to Haiti. I was intrigued and wanted to find out more.
As everyone is aware, but most of the world is beginning to forget, Haiti is in a state of chaos. An earthquake in 2010 left the country devastated with little infrastructure to speak of. Health care where it exists is patchy and poorly equipped to deal with the ongoing medical issues of the population: not just injuries from the quake but endemic malaria, dengue, HIV, TB and other infectious diseases.
Following the earthquake a group of physicians from the University of Miami came over to help and found much work to do. They set up a charity Project Medishare initially working in tents at the airport. Subsequently they funded and set up Bernard Mev's Hospital, a well equipped 50 bed hospital which is the only trauma centre in the country. It has the only adult ICU beds in the country (3!), a spinal injury service, amputee service and well equipped ORs. It has Haitian staff but relies on overseas mission staff to fully run its services.
Andrew Furey a very dynamic Orthopod from Newfoundland wanted to get involved and has over the last few years organized teams from Canada to come over via his charity Team Broken Earth. Teams have gone from Newfoundland and latterly Calgary. It was time for Halifax to get involved!
As it stands a team of 15 will be going, including myself. Surgery input is Chad Coles and Dave Amirault from Ortho and Marty LeBlanc from Plastics. Also going from Anaesthesia is Heather Sirounis. Backing them up are Heather's Hubby David McCartney, Keith Neufield, Ortho resident. In addition some of Capital Health's finest nursing are accompanying us: Kim Sampson and Denise McMahon (OR), Tracy Tooke and Susan Allen(Recovery). Also travelling are Paediatric ER docs and some Paediatric ER nurses. I will post full team details in another post.
I am looking forward to the experience, which will be somewhat different from what we are used to. It will be a good learning experience to go back to basics.
So I have been immunised against just about every pathogen known to humanity and have mosquito nets and DEET on my shopping list. Nowhere near organized or packed yet!
Let the adventures begin......
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