Promise for Haiti

Summit from Jared Nikkels

Here is a quick update on what I know at this time.

Greg Bennett's CCH team left yesterday after cleaning up many of our tough ortho cases and handling and releasing many patients. They were able perform surgery on most earthquake cases that needed it and started in on cases that were here prior to the earthquake. The team came with about 3500 pounds of medical supplies.

Project Haiti's team arrived by truck after a long trip last Saturday. They came with 15 people. Six of the team members came to help organize supplies and have left. We have Dr. Fogarty and his team that continue to operate. Their team brought approximately 11000 pounds of supplies.

We also have two orthopedic surgeons from the Rotary Club staying here and working with the doctors from Project Haiti.

The hope is to rotate teams with a couple days of overlap so they can have continuity of care.

We have been feeding all patients since the earthquake with money received from PFH and now we have started preparing two hundred meals each day for all patients and their families. We have also been able to feed much of the staff here at the hospital. We prepared a varied menu including meat each day and will continue to work on tweaking the nutrition to support proper healing. Caleb Lucien has also been supplementing our program and is bringing an afternoon meal for patients and families. We have also started giving purified water twice a day to patients and families in the hospital.

The Rotary Club and Caleb Lucien were able to get us a cast saw on Wednesday and that was a tremendous help. Lorrie Beauchamp Berg has also shipped a cast saw and that will be a great back up especially with all the casting going on right now.

We received the autoclave via Coast Guard Helicopter and it is working now allowing us to sterilize more and larger instruments.

We are still looking to accept patient’s especially surgical patients. I spoke with Will White from MAF this morning and he was going to try to fly some surgical patients up here today. Jim Scheller's employer, Arkel Int'l is willing to pay for some of those flights. MAF has been a tremendous blessing.

We are currently working on organizing supplies and are working on a centralized inventory system. Stacey and hospital staff has been working to keep up with the influx of supplies.

I apologize for the lack of communication. Our Internet has failed and the Internet at the hospital is off and on. We will keep working together and try to keep everyone updated when possible. Thanks to everyone for the concern and all the hard work. Please forward this to anyone I missed. God Bless