The bad news is that many of the patients received are very sick with infections because of their delayed treatment. The staff were up all night Tuesday night trying to save a 19 year old girl but unfortunately she died. A 26 year old man is currently in critical condition, we have put out a call for 2 ventilators and hopefully one will be arriving with the Boston Caritas Christi Hospital group tomorrow and one from St Louis. We are now determining how many additional internists and medical people we will need to care for those with infectous diseases.
We have 48 children victims of the quake and the good news is that several of the girls aged between 5 and 7 who have had amputations and/or have casts on their legs began to walk with their crutches for the first time today outside the “new hospital” - the school across from the hospital building. There were lots of smiles and lots of encouragement as they took their first steps. Kat, one of our Haitian Nurse Practitioners walked with the girls through the mens ward where many have had amputations and told them “See if the girls can do it, you can do it!”. Our incredible volunteers are doing amazing work that stretches beyond providing medical care. Currently there is a group from Caritas Christi, one from St Louis and a medical orthopedic team from Florida. Our thanks too to our staff and volunteer co-ordinating team working in Haiti on supplies and the million other non-medical tasks that need to be accomplished. We are very grateful also to our supporters, those sourcing and flying planes of volunteers with urgently needed supplies,donors of essential supplies and those organizing fundraisers and spreading the word about CRUDEM.
Another 14 patients were discharged today, we currently have 228 patients and are expecting another 20 surgical cases by helicopter Thursday.
The following is an excerpt from Dr Bill Guyol from who just arrived with a team of 12 from St Louis;
“Hello friends of the Crudem Foundation.Greetings from Milot, Haiti! We arrived at the Crudem compound today. It is like coming home, but different this time.The hospital and the town have been transformed.
The people here are exhausted; happy to see reinforcements. Most work 16-20 hour days, missing their meals, showers, beds. What they did here was extraordinary. I cannot describe how valiantly this organization has responded to this crisis.The number of people who dropped all job and family responsibilities and rushed to Haiti restores my faith in mankind’s capacity to love. This was a war - chaotic, bloody, full of human misery, stoicism, inconsolable loss and heroic virtue.
We were greeted with the tears of volunteers on our arrival. They showed us a young couple sitting on a mattress on the grass next to our residence. Fr. Frank, a nurse from Boston and several of our staff were trying to console them. Their beautiful 4 year old daughter had just died of tetanus. My interpreter Patrick was crushed - she had called him Papa.
We need your help. There is an incredible story here that needs to be told. We need your prayers but most importantly we need your financial support. This type of expansion of our responsibilities comes at a great price - human and monetary.
In addition to its support of the Hopital Sacre Coeur, the American Association of the Order of Malta awarded a grant of $75,000 to the relief group AmeriCares in 2009 and has awarded grants over the past decade in excess of $1,000,000.
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