Update on MSF's activities in Haïti

The MSF teams have been working through the long queues of patients waiting for treatment and surgery, even as Port au Prince was shaken again by a very substantial aftershock this morning. In Choscal hospital, where two operating theatres have been working round the clock for days to deal with the seriously injured, the patients were so alarmed by the tremors that they once again had to be taken out of the building and put into tents in the grounds outside. The operating theatres have continued to work with four surgical teams rotating through the day.

In Carrefour hospital, the team has started psychological support for the patients who have had limbs amputated and their families. A different form of intensive post-operative care is underway as pysiotherapy work with burns patients has started in another hospital, while the dialysis treatment of crush victims continues in the big Genral Hospital. Six patients have now been treated with dialysis and the team is using a detection test to identify other patients with crush injuries who are in need this intensive care.

Every functional operating theatre is used night and day, while logisticians are racing to set up new ones or rehabilitate damaged ones. MSF surgical teams have been carrying out an average of 130 operations per day for the last few days and this is increasing as new surgical teams start work. There are now 10 operating theatres, 7 in Port-au-Prince hospitals (Choscal, Trinité, Carrefour and Chancerelle hospitals) and 3 in towns in the west of the capital (Leogane and Jacmel). In addition, minor surgical procedures like cleaning and removing dead tissue from wounds are taking place in small operating theatres in Trinité and Pacot hospitals.

Capacity will further increase in the near future, as additional operating theatres are being prepared in Port-au-Prince and in the west of the island (Leogane and Grand-Goave). The inflatable hospital with two operating theatres and 100 beds is emerging on a field in Port au Prince.The construction team expect to have it working on Friday morning.

New challenges are emerging as the people of Port au Prince have been fleeing the city. MSF is trying to identify the medical needs of those who have been displaced towards and across the border of the Dominican Republic. And MSF has received reports of 300 injured people gathered in the town of Lekai on the southwest coast, who had left the city and are now without adequate medical care. MSF is exploring way to get them to its medical facilities.

January Break

I just returned from my break on the south coast of Kenya. It was, as usual, great. I stayed in Diani Beach, a coastal holiday town 35 kilometers south of Mombasa. The town has one road and 10 kilometers of white sand beach. I was adopted by a bunch of locals, and they showed me every possible alcohol to drink in the area (local corn beer, coconut wine, Tusker and other Kenyan beers). One afternoon, they prepared a late lunch of duck (which we slaughtered and plucked ourselves), rice pilaf and salad. I paid for the food. There were about 10 of us to eat this fabulous feast, which cost me about the same as one meal for myself in a restaurant. It was really a great afternoon.



A lot of my time was spent in the villages around Diani Beach with this group, seeing how the Kenyans live. Compared with Congo, Kenya is a rich (and stable) country, but the typical Kenyan lives in a home with no electricity or running water, and jobs are scarce. Tourism and agriculture are the primary business sectors.


I also spent 2 days in a game reserve, Tsavo East. It is one of the largest reserves in Kenya, and a bit less crowded than some of the others. I saw 3 out of the big 5 – elephant, lion, and leopard (no rhino or buffalo). The leopard was a rare treat! I must admit that the lions were so far away that they could have been big dogs and I wouldn’t have seen the difference. We also saw giraffes, zebras, hippopotamus, wild hogs, ostriches, giant lizards, a jackal, baboons, and assorted types of antelopes and birds. There were 10 people in our open-top minibus – 2 French speakers, 7 German speakers and me. My German made a pretty quick comeback. Although I have a very small vocabulary, it helped. There were two kids in the group who were really well behaved and made us laugh constantly. Our Kenyan guide, Cyrus, was great, and VERY patient.

My last 3 days were less that stellar. Three of us were supposed to do a snorkelling trip from an island off the coast, but the guy who should have done the booking for us (the brother of one of my local buddies) took off with the money. The next day, my buddy was locked up in jail. We think that it was his brother who arranged the deal with the police to keep him out of the way while he spent the 150 dollars. And I missed my first flight out because of some problems with the ferry between the south coast and Mombasa. Fortunately, there was a second flight which connected brilliantly with my flight between Niarobi and Kigali.

I returned here to Goma just in time to participate in a 2-day meeting with our project coordinators to plan our activities for 2010. It was a good exercise. The field team now has a much better idea of what my role is in the coming year as human resources coordinator. Now, I must catch up with the work which arrived since my departure AND continue working on the long-term projects. It won’t help that I have been pretty sick since returning – vomiting, diarrhoea, an infected spider bite and a huge, flowering case of herpes. I’m very rarely sick but when I am, everything seems to hit at the same time.

I also arrived to the news about the earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) already has a big orthopaedic surgery team in place there, so we were well positioned to help immediately with the medical work. And we have already begun to send reinforcements. I know at least three people who have already left to join the emergency team there, including the lady who was replacing me here during my break. This is the kind of intervention that we do really well. It will be exciting but challenging work.