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Haiti: Successful creation of more medical facilities

Published 28 January 2010

 

© Julie Remy - Port-au-Prince, Haiti - January 16, 2010
In Choscal hospital, where MSF relocated after its original facilities were so badly damaged, the operating theatre has been working non stop. Experienced MSF medical staff say they have never seen so many serious injuries.

MSF’s work in Haiti is expanding as needs and priorities shift, but the core medical services in hospitals and clinics still dominates.  In Port au Prince’s  'New Carrefour Hospital', housed in two school buildings next to the hospital rendered unusable by aftershocks, surgeons performed 40 operations yesterday. In the neighbourhood of Carrefour Feuille, an area where 9,000 people have now made temporary homes, a small team consisting of two nurses, a doctor and an obstetrics specialist are running a clinic from a tent. They are still seeing people with injuries from the quake coming for help, but also increasing numbers with diarrhea and fever.

MSF has successful created other new medical facilities in the capital and beyond, including a post-operative tent ‘village’ that has been assembled in an area called Delmas 30. Patients will transported there from other MSF hospitals to recover from their operations.

Post-operative care is one of Haiti’s greatest needs right now, as Brigg Reilley, an MSF epidemiologist analyzing the country’s health needs explains. "The most serious cases are going to continually need dressing and regular cleaning, all part of a very nursing-intensive process. We're eventually going to need skin grafts and prosthetics. These will be needed not only in the next days, but (also) in the coming weeks, months and beyond. Even after the current media spotlight on Haiti fades, there will be patients with extensive orthopedic needs as a result of the earthquake."

A former kindergarden named "Mickey" has now been converted into a 60 bed facility that can be expanded to house 180. In Bicentenaire there are another 30 beds available and in a secondary school in the Champs Mars area a clinic has opened that will soon provide in-patient facilities as well. In the town of Jacmel, which was hit especially hard by the quake, MSF is now working with the local hospital to provide care in their building and in tents surrounding it.

MSF is also expanding its work in water provision and now has the materials and specialist staff in Haiti required to begin helping communities where it offers medical services. A new clinic has opened in Grace Village and the team there is providing water to the 15,000 people in the area. Near the Chancerelle Hospital, MSF is using water bladders to supply a community that is camped in the open and a similar project is underway near kindergarden Mickey.

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