Haiti Day Two

Ryan slept horribly because of all the noises depite having ear plugs. He had brought a double mosquito net and so had to share it with his neighbor who snored like a bear. The roosters began to crow at 3am.  After a day or two the group jokingly put up a poster for a vote to either kill or spare the rooster. The rooster was voted dead but no one really killed it.  Ryan did have a thermarest mattress that kept him off the ground and he said it was very comfortable.

They had to be up to make their own breakfast at 6:45am and then the morning meeting began at 7:30a. There was a meeting every morning to discuss the plan for the day and to hand out assignments. It was during this meeting that the Union group was informed that there was a rumor that two Americans had been kidnapped and so their safety was in question and they did not want to plan any mobile units until they were sure it would be safe.

Their compound was across the street from the Adventist hospital but there was a clinic held in a house right next to the compound. It was discovered that the Haitians begin lining up for the clinics between 4 and 5am.

The clinic was staffed so the medical people from the Union group were used to organize the pharmacy- combining bottles to make more desperately needed space.  The medicine is dispensed to the Haitians in old bottles or in zip lock baggies.  There was a big tent filled with different supplies so the rest of the Union group organized those supplies.

The pharmacy was a mess! There was no pharmasist and so the pharmacy was left in the hands of a Nurse Practitioner who left early for a meeting, a PA and Ryan but the responsibilty was mainly left to Ryan.

Ryan noticed that there were some medicine that was exactly the same but looked different. He wanted to keep the pills separated by how they looked but he was instructed by the PA to combine all the same medicine into the same container regardless of how they look.  Ryan commented at that time, "That would make a pharmasist cry." The PA laughed but still wanted them all combined so Ryan did. Thursday a real Pharmasist arrived and yelled at Ryan because he had to spend hours resorting all the combined pills. That was a little frustrating for Ryan.

In the house where the clinic was held, it was extremely hot. Ryan had on his camel pack and drank liter after liter of water- probably 2 gallons worth but he only had to go to the bather about 1 or 2 times throughout the day.

Ryan spent all morning in the pharmacy and tried to teach nonmedical Union group members how to help sort and organize the clinic. Those people were glad that Ryan taught them how to help.

For lunch they were served rice, beans, and tofu all week long! Ryan said it wasn't too bad the first couple of days.

After lunch, one of the group leaders took Ryan over to the Adventist hospital to meet one of his family members who was a pediatrician there. It became apparant that there is some sort of conflict between the hospital and the clinic and they are not working very well together. In fact, later on Union was instructed that they were not able to work in the hospital unless they had a signed paper from the ACTs group (even though the hospital is extremely under-staffed and the clinic was adequately staffed). Ryan broke the rule the next day.

On his tour, Ryan met a great Korean nurse who was working in post-op/recovery unit (like a PACU plus surgical short stay) who told him that if he was interested in working he needed to be back at the hospital at 7:30am the next morning.

The hospital sometimes has armed security and is enclosed by a security gate. There are tons of tents in the courtyard . To the left of the courtyard people were hobbling around without limbs and other injuries and illnesses. They were people who had been hurt in the earthquake and had no home to go to after being released from care so the hospital allowed them to camp in the courtyard. To the right, there was the triage tent where they do initial assessments on patients before they are sent into the hospital.

The hospital is in an old worn down building. It is two stories high and in the shape of a t. They squeezed as many patients as possible into a room. There were 10 people on cots squeezed into an American double room.

The volunteers slet on top of the hospital in tents. The best part...the break room was air conditioned!!

Ryan was sad after the tour because he wasn't sure if he would get to help there or not. He went back to the clinic pharmacy and worked there until supper at 6pm

7:30p is their day closing meeting where people gave testimonies on what they did and say. It wasn't just the group from Union in the compound. It was all volunteers with ACTs. There was a big group of people from Iraguay. During this meeting, it was announced that the group would be taking a trip to the beach the next day (the clinic and hospital are closed on Sundays). Ryan was very disappointed. He wanted to work!

Ryan felt proud at the end of the day with how much organizing they had accomplished and how he had helped some nonmedical volunteers get involved.

A lot of the nonmedical Union group were taken on a sight-seeing tour but Ryan didn't feel right about doing that when were was so much work to do in the pharmacy and so he stayed back and a few of those who he had taught stayed as well and they made IV kits (Ryan's idea) and the healthcare providers LOVED the kits.

At bedtime Ryan took a sleeping pill and a very stron pill for his back. He slept like a baby and didn't hear a thing that night.