Happy Vertieres Day......

It's a public holiday in Haiti today, commemorating the defeat of the French at the Battle of Vertieres in 1803. Which means there was a little spot of Incivility elsewhere in Port au Prince, but thankfully no stone throwing or tear gas here! The only inconvenience here was no access to medical records until tomorrow, even for patients coming today for follow up, which makes management a little sporting. No rest for the Halifax team with our first official 'elective' day of work. The Ortho chaps did a 26 year old with a fractured pelvis and a 70 year old with a tibial fracture, an ankle fracture and a humeral  fracture. Both went well surgically, however it looks like the latter patient has fat embolism, probably as a result of being left for a week! 

In the other room they removed some wrist hardware and plastics are currently finishing off a hand injury done under our first regional block. That was an experience in itself! We used an ancient sonosite with a tiny screen. Couldn't get the regular probe to work so had to use the abdominal probe. Also our coupling gel was , somewhat appropriately, Astroglide! (See my twitter feed, you are following that aren't you? @axe1314 for anyone interested!)

In other corners of the hospital the rest of the team have been seeing patients with malaria, syphilis and even a cavitating TB !! Not the sort of stuff you see everyday in Halifax.  The ER here has been absolutely jumping around the clock! Dog bites, head injuries, seizures, GI bleeds etc etc.

Now on roof doing this watching the sights and sounds of the neighbourhood before we dine again at the Visa Lodge. More trauma, and a big osteosarcoma awaits the surgical team. The fun just never stops!!

The OR team: top row from left: myself, Kim,Denise, Keith, David Jr, David Sr, bottom row Chad,Marti and Heather