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.