Haiti: Mobile clinics find many needing care

Haiti | 22 January 2010

As the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospitals and tent wards continue to treat injured people and carry out operations in Port-au-Prince, the mobile teams that have recently started roving through the capital and points west are finding significant numbers of people needing medical care. Because all of the working hospitals in the city have been overwhelmed for the past ten days with serious injuries, the more routine illnesses and longer term care of wounds have been hard to manage. MSF mobile clinics are finding many patients whose more minor injuries and illnesses can easily deteriorate if neglected.

Photo: Julie Rémy, MSF | Medical care continues in the streets in front of what was La Trinité trauma hospital and rehabilitation center Pacot in Port-au-Prince. Haiti.

On their first day in the capital MSF mobile clinics located around 200 patients who needed help cleaning their wounds, changing dressings, putting in stitches or getting more specialized care in one of MSF's hospitals. In areas around Léogâne and Grand-Goâve MSF teams identified dozens of injured people who needed surgical care and referred them to hospitals.

In one of the poorest parts of Port-au-Prince, the Cité Soleil slum, MSF is performing up to 30 surgical operations a day, including an increasing number of people being admitted with injuries caused by bullets or machetes. Though tension is rising in the area, the number of violence-related injuries is still relatively low, with an average of only three a day. Marie-Christine Ferir, one of MSF's emergency coordinators, says that this must be seen in perspective. "Well before this earthquake, this was a very deprived area with many social problems and a history of violence. Clearly, tensions will be further amplified by the stresses from this quake."

The other MSF teams have been continuing to work on finding or building appropriate facilities to treat and house patients in their care. The major aftershock that struck Haiti on Wednesday complicated what was already a pressing need, as two hospitals in Port-au-Prince and one in Léogâne had to be evacuated because they were no longer safe. Patients had to be put in tents and 100 were moved to the emerging inflatable hospital.

Although the number of MSF staff working in the emergency has been rising quickly, it has taken a long time to trace some of the Haitian staff working in projects that existed when the earthquake struck. Many have returned to work, despite what has happened to their families and neighbourhoods. Unfortunately we now know that four MSF staff have died. Four others who had recently worked with MSF also lost their lives. Six other MSF staff remain missing.