Haitian Adventure

Today I got a tour of the inside of the hospital. There is a men's room, a woman's room , and SCI room and a pediatric room all stationed off the ED. The rooms are large squares that have several cots where the patients stay. Right now no one has a private room, but they are building a new ED where they hope to have some private rooms. The rooms are loud and hot, but the patients are getting good free medical care , so that is all that really matters! They also get fed for free, which is novel for Haiti hospitals. Usually family needs to bring the patient food and medicine. Here they. Get both for free! Today we popped by the men's unit to check out a kiddo who they though had guillian barre. Just like at home, it was unclear if he actually had it or not, but we evaluated him anyway. He was able to walk from the IP part of the hospital to our little gym. We gave him some exercises and are having him come back tomorrow to see how he is doing. We saw the same patients  that w

Today was my first full day at St. Boniface. I got a quick tour of the hospital before heading off to the SCI unit. This hospital is in a little world of its own . There is a fully capable NICU, maternity ward, gen med ward, pediatric ward and surgical ward. There are three surgery rooms. All kinds of procedures are performed, but none are elective. There is also a lab, pharmacy and outpatient department. There is of course the SCI center which is across from the rest of the hospital. The SCI center has a little rehab gym, a basketball court, gardens as well as residences for the patients. The patients share a room, though the rooms are pretty big. The staff consists of a PT, social workers, psychiatrist as well as RNs trained in SCI protocols. There are also several rehab techs that do a second treatment for the patients each day.  Each patient gets seen for 2 45 ish minute sessions. The rehab techs are way more involved in patient care here which is great and of huge benefit to the p

So my internet has been crappy... and I have been lazy so I am clumping 4 days of fun together!  Thursday and Friday were a bit rough emotionally .  Remeber my patient I wrote about on Wednesday who I told needed an amputation. We sent him for tests and it turns out he is HIV +. This is not a huge deal In the USA because there are medications that can successfully slow the disease and in some cases cure it. In Haiti there are no drugs ( even if there were this patient could not afford them). His HIV will progress to AIDS and it will kill him. Probably within the next few years. His is the first time in all my trips I felt useless and very limited by what I could offer a patient. I did talk to him about the disease and how it can impact his life and how to avoid spreading it to others, but that is only the tip of what needs to be done. We were able to give him an IV of b complex and saline as well as theee good meals and a ton of vitamins.  He reported that he felt better, which made me

Today was a crazy wound day again! I started off with about 7 returners, but did not actually get to see them for about 2 hours because I was seeing wounds on other people's patients.  I had one patient today who I have been seeing since last week who I needed to talk to about getting an amputation because his wound is not healing and very prone to infection. I spoke to an American doctor who comes to Haiti to do surgery to ask what his thoughts were. He is currently thinking thiabpatient may have sickle cell anemia. Tomorrow we are going to escort this patient to get labs done and we are going to give him some vitamins and fluid via IV. Good thing we have good nurses on the team that can set up and IV! The patient flat out declined an amputation , but he was willing to go see th surgeon to see what he had to say. Although this patient heard what I said  , I know he is currently in denial and tomorrow when I see him he may either be really mad or sad or both. I see that a lot is my

Today was my " off "day from wounds. I have most people coming back MWF. Despite this, I still saw a ton of rashes and other random skin ailments. I also did a lot of screening for the general medical team. I tested a lot of pee for UTIs, looked in a bunch of ears, listened to a lot of lungs and took many blood pressures. Here a " normal BP" is about 150/90. I had one as high as 250/110! There was a lot of educating on the importance of food choices as well as adding dholeaf to their food. Dholeaf ( or merengue in English) is a super super food that grows in abundance here in Haiti. It has many properties but can help lower blood pressure and has a ton of nutrients in it. I had many people who came in today who eat only one meal per day because they cannot afford food. I told them all to crush up some dholeaf and add that to their food to help with nutrition. It is so sad to see so many hungry people. I wish I could give them some food, but, if we start giving out f

First day with the new crew! Seemed To go very well. The morning was nuts for me. I think I only saw 1 or2 people assigned to me. There were a TON of  wounds I had to check out on other people's patients . The wounds were all over as well. A few fingers, a fees rashes, a few legs. I saw my first venous wound here in Haiti. All exciting things. We have two younger people on our trip who plan on attending PT school, one of them LOVEs wounds almost as much as I do! She helps me out a ton and makes seeing a few patients at once possible. Although most of the say was great I have one wound that is baffling me. No matter what I do it keeps getting worse. It is driving me nuts! I reached out to some of he MDs back home, so hopefully that will help. In the meantime I am googling all kinds of things so figure out what to do.  After work we all hung out in the clinic and geeked out over PT related things. It was rainy so we did. It get to go on our normal walk. I practiced my manipulations o

The weekend is here!!!!! Today we hopped in a boat and headed to Tortuga. We went to a different part of Tortuga this time. Tortuga is so lush compared to PDP. There is so much green. It is also way quieter and everyone seems to be more calm. It is also wayyyy cooler. This was the first time I was actually cold in Haiti! We stayed in this cute bread and breakfast that had a great view of the island and the water. We ate chatted and relaxed all day Saturday . We also took a short walk around the village we were staying in. I was told that Tortuga had more poverty than PDP. I would never know that just looking at the homes. They are generally larger and better constructed than those I see here by the clinic. The people and kids also look healthier. One thing that I found interesting is how much solar power was used on the island. There was even a little solar panel farm at the top of the island. Great source of basic electricity!  Sunday we headed back down the mountain , took a boat bac

Last day with the week one crew😳I am sad to see them head home, but excited to meet the new group of people.   Today was a busy wound day with lots of oozy infected wounds( sorry mum!!). I saw one ortho patient who I successfully manipulated her lumbar spine. After clinic we geeked out over PT manipulation techniques as well as soft tissue techniques. It is amazing how much I learn on these trips! We said goodbye to our interpreters and took a group photo. We took the photo in the street outside our clinic and the people on the street kept trying to photobomb us. It was pretty comical. After some people went to a hotel to chill. It is Yom Kippur tonight so I am just staying in and reading ( while thinking longingly of food 😜) . The crew leaves at 4 tomorrow morning so the plan is to go to bed early and then help people pack up and leave bright and early.