The only way we survive is through our faith and humor...

Over these past 2 ½ weeks, we’ve seen things that nobody should have to see…these things should just simply not be. We’ve seen children that have had their limbs cut off – in surgery or because their house or school crushed them. One boy came into our triage tent 1 ½ weeks after the earthquake – his leg was half gone – bone sticking out, surrounded by infected flesh. He was just now arriving to receive treatment – he wasn’t able to get to the hospital any earlier.

En route to Kenscoff (where NPH Haiti is located – high up in the mountains) on Saturday, we drove through Port-au-Prince. The ex-volunteers in our truck wanted to see what was left of the city they once knew. We passed the government buildings that are no more than piles of broken cement. The whole downtown area has been destroyed. Even the buildings that remain standing must be broken down before they fall on their own one day. We passed a supermarket that is no more than dust now…an estimated 400 bodies stuck inside. Passing it you smell their bodies rotting in the heat. People wear masks in the city because the stench is unbearable.

Mass was said on Saturday on top of the Fr. Wasson Center, our old hospital in Petionville that collapsed, in memory of Ryan and Molly, two volunteers that lost their lives in the tragedy. Mass was then said at Josef’s house (an ex-pequeno of NPFS Haiti and now employee of the organization), where he lost his entire family – not one was pulled from the home. They stood upon his crumbled home, now the grave of his family. As mass was said, many could not stand the smell of Josef’s family that was decaying under the rock. One of the band members threw up because of the stench. This ceremony is the closest thing he will get to having closure and burial for those he loved the most.

A few days ago I was sitting on the porch of the volunteer house, and as a semi drove behind the building, we heard yelling and people running on the gravel road. One of the trucks that was en route to our storage facility had been broken into. As it drove down the road, a few men jumped on the back and opened the doors. They began throwing boxes out – eventually whole pallets were being dumped off the truck. The people are hungry – and there is little food to eat. People are thirsty, and there is little water. Many people are still in the dark about where they can get the food they’ve been promised by the global community. People will do anything to make sure their families have a bit of food to eat. The people are struggling to make it.

In Fr. Rick’s homily on Sunday, he said “The only way we survive is through our faith and humor”. It’s true – we are in the midst of many horrendous things. But through our faith and humor, we are able to carry on. We have an amazing team of people that has come together through this tragedy. Many NPH volunteers, ex-volunteers and staff (you'll see some of them in the photo above) have come together to support our Haitian brothers and sisters – those that belong to our organization, and those that have been somehow treated or touched by our organization. People that have never even heard of NPH or St. Damien Hospital have shown up to our doors offering any help they could possibly give us. The latest estimate is that our hospital has cared for over 10,000 people – including those admitted to our hospital, and through our mobile clinics.

It is amazing to me how this tragedy can bring so many people together – people from all over the world have come together to support the efforts of the local staff of St. Damien and all of their outreach projects. If any of you would like to donate to a cause I truly believe in, visit www.compassionweavers.com . This is the website of the work being done in St. Damien Pediatric Hospital and their outreach projects. All donations will go directly towards serving the people of Haiti. All of us here appreciate your support of the work we are doing, and the work that will continue to be done long after we leave.

Peace to you all, annie

A Dignified Burial

Every Thursday, Fr. Rick Frechette and his team gather bodies from the morgues of St. Damien and the General Hospital and lay them to rest about half an hour outside of Port-au-Prince. I joined them today, along with several other volunteers.

The day began around 9am when we took off for the General Hospital. This was the first time I really had been out of the hospital, and my eyes were opened to the destruction this country has faced. We drove past the Presidential Palace, and all of the other government buildings that are now not much more than piles of crumbled cement. We drove past a number of tent cities that have been made of nothing more than sheets, sticks and rope. We passed lines of people waiting to receive bags of rice.

When we arrived at the hospital (there were probably somewhere around 20 people with us), the team had disposable gowns ready, and they showed us how to use the gown bags as booties to cover our shoes – so I was one of the lucky ones to get those. Once we were all gowned up, we put on our face masks and gloves and headed to the morgue. The hospital staff from the morgue opened up the large coolers that were just filled with bodies piled on top of each other (something like walk-in meat coolers – excuse the description…) and Fr. Rick said a prayer, and that was followed by song. They repeated this in the second cooler, and we received instructions on our tasks.

Fr. Rick and the hospital staff pulled the bodies out of the cooler and placed them in the paper coffins made by a group of guys that grew up in our orphanage and now are living on their own. All of the bodies were covered with a long piece of white paper with the Passionist symbol on it, and in Creole it said, “May the angels meet you in paradise”. A hand-made rosary was also placed in each coffin before it was closed and carried off to the trucks.

The 50 coffins we had were filled, mostly with individual bodies placed inside. What I assume was a mother and her baby child where placed in the same coffin. Another ten infants and babies were placed in another coffin together. The bodies that were left we placed in body bags and carried out.

As you can imagine, the closer they got to the bottom of the pile, the more decayed the bodies were. Without getting too detailed, it was pretty apparent that these people had died quite some time ago.

We arrived at the cemetery about mid-day. There we were met by a band of about 5 men – they are there every week. The local men that dig the graves were there with shovels in hand. I can only imagine how difficult it is to dig those graves in the rocky earth. They had dug I think maybe 7 graves – several coffins placed in each grave.

We unloaded the bodies from the trucks – usually about 4-6 of us carrying a coffin. A few guys were down in the grave to take the bodies from us as we passed them down. The earth between the graves was narrow and loose. Several times as we were carrying the coffins we would slip on the loose dirt and nearly fall…struggling to keep hold of the coffin.

After they were all laid to rest, a prayer was said, and the band played again. The local men began to fill in the graves, and we headed back to the hospital.

The day was incredibly difficult – but very moving and special. The people we buried had not been claimed by family – they had nobody to give them proper burials. This sadly enough, is much too common in Haiti. If the team of St. Damien weren’t to bury these people, they would wind up in mass graves somewhere. It was a beautiful experience to be able to help give them a proper, dignified burial.

Haiti

On January 12, the earth shook Haiti to pieces. Buildings collapsed. Family members, friends, neighbors were killed. Many have lost limbs and have suffered severe crush injuries. The Haitian community has been severely injured due to the earthquake, however they have not been destroyed. The Haitian people have a resiliency which is indescribable.

I arrived to Haiti on January 22 on a six-seat plane (I was the co-pilot if you can believe it!). As we circled around awaiting our turn to land at the Port-au-Prince airport, the pilot (who had been flying in and out twice a day since the earthquake carrying in medical personnel and reporters) pointed out the different areas of town, showing me the places most affected by the quake. The streets were lined with people, tent cities had taken over the city.

I was quickly put to work in St. Damien Pediatric Hospital upon arrival – which at the time had something like 300 patients being cared for in a 120-bed hospital. We have been providing care for children and adults. About a week and a half ago we started up four mobile clinic teams. These teams go to different areas of the city to provide care for the people that haven’t been able to make it to hospitals for care. They have found severely wounded people, severely malnourished children, and have begun to see gastrointestinal and respiratory infections. Some of the people they find in the communities have been transported to St. Damien to receive proper care.

The hospital has 2 operating rooms inside, and in the back yard the Italian Civil Defense has set up a field hospital where they have been performing orthopedic and general surgery on our patients. Due to the incredible need, some of our volunteers from Italy and the US worked together to set up a maternity ward. We have had several births here over the weeks, lots of extremely premature babies, and lots of pretty sick mothers have been coming in that require a lot of care by our volunteers and staff.

There are currently about 80 orthopedic post op patients in our facility. If you walk into pretty much any of the in-patient rooms you will find it full of children with amputations of at least one limb if not two. It is a terrible sight.

A couple of days ago we began receiving post op patients from the USS Comfort. We’re trying to get our hospital back to a pediatric hospital, so in order to do so we have set up large tents out in our front yard which is where our adult post op patients have been placed.

We have set up tents outside where some of our patients that are ready for discharge have been sent – those that could go home…if they had one to go back to. So many of our patients have lost everything. So we’re doing our best to give them some place to stay until they’re able to figure something out. Some that have been discharged have been given a bit of money to help them get started again, to buy food for their families. I’ve been told that the gangs are now charging people to stay on the streets – so some of the money they are given prior to discharge is to allow them to pay these “fees”.

My job is to coordinate all of the medical teams coming from all over the world to work in our hospital. This includes deciding what the staffing needs are currently, what the needs may be in the coming weeks, as well as making the schedules for the nurses and doctors for the hospital and our mobile clinics. So basically, I need to make sure we have the appropriate medical personnel coming in to meet our needs, while at the same time not over-staffing ourselves that people get bored or feel useless, and then also making sure all of the rooms have nurses in them and that we have doctors assigned to all of the rooms. I’ve been working with the local nursing coordinator and the human resources manager to coordinate with the staff they have available.

The hospital staff had been drastically reduced following the earthquake. At one point they only had one third of their staff working, as some had been killed, others had lost family or they simply didn’t have the means to show up to work. Transportation has become a big problem. Within the past week they have hired about 30 more nurses to begin to replace those that haven’t been coming which has been quite helpful.