The Patients

What we remember most about our work is the people we met, especially the patients. It is hard to describe but they are just very stoic. Sometimes they sing hymms while they are in surgery or you can hear them singing in the shower. Each one has a terrible story to tell.

One patient, a young woman around 20, had an arm injury and she was surrounded by several members of her family-a young man in his 20s, older woman and young girl around 5 or 6 years old. After spending some time with them over a 2 day period, the older woman showed us a very small picture. It was smaller than a wallet size photo. In the photo was a young woman with 2 children, one of whom was the 5 year old girl. The older woman told us that our patient was her daughter and the photo was of her other daughter with her 2 children. The young woman and the infant in the photo had been killed; the 5 year old had lost her mother. Which explained why she was glued to the young man, who was her father.

We were touched by a young man in his 30s who was extremely cheerful, always smiling. He was absolutely devoted to an older woman, who we assumed was his grandmother. It turns out this woman, was his mother and was about 50, the same age as many of the nurses, but looked about 80. This man would fix his mother's hair, feed her, smooth her sheets, etc. One day he told us that his father had been killed and this was his mother; it was clear he was not going to let anything happen to her.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking story we heard was one that Mia found out about. A young woman in her 20s has an open distal tib/fib fracture. In the United States, this type of injury would be treated with a free flap and the limb would most likely be salvaged, restoring full function. Unfortunately, free flaps are not available for these patients. The orthopedic surgeon wanted to perform an amputation, which is the way to treat this type of injury if the bone cannot be covered with tissue. The patient refused. We had been told previously that the patient's husband had been killed by decapitation and that she had small children that she needed to take care of. The patient told Mia that she could not have an amputation because, if she did, she and her children would die because she could not work. Even if she had a prosthetic leg, it is not clear how she would manage. How would she walk over all the rocks and stones, etc. that are the roads in Haiti? She does not have paved roads to walk on in Haiti. This was part of the frustration of the situation; she could be helped but there are thousands like her and it is just not possible to do everything for everyone.

Many Haitians would tell us right away that they would be getting right back to work. It is such a different attitude from that in the US. If a Haitian does not work, they don't eat. So getting back to work is the first priority for many people we met. You know how it is in the US, with unemployment insurance, workman's comp, disability, etc. and the abuse of those programs. When it comes to working, the comparison between the attitude of some US persons and that of a Haitian person is very dramatic, in favor of the Haitian.