Update On the Medical Mission to Haiti

I received a call from Mark tonight.  He had a safe trip to Haiti aboard a jet donated by a private citizen.  It took a collaborative effort and donations of time, money, and supplies from many generous people to make this trip possible.

They were mobbed at the airport by people looking for help of all sorts: food, money, whatever they could get. Meanwhile, the doctors have been performing surgeries 15 hours per day. The hospital is “decent” and there are teams from Mississippi, North Carolina, Seattle, and Italy. Mark commented that the  injured are putting up with lots of pain as they wait for help but they have been patient. They are in hospital rooms, in the hallways, out on the hospital porch, and in the park.  There are few emergency amputations, only revisions of existing procedures.  There are plenty of  other broken bones requiring attention. Also, they are slowly getting organized making sure the surgical patients receive follow-up care.  At first, it was difficult to do surgery and also monitor the recovery of those who had already had a procedure. They are close to the U.S. Embassy at this point.  They expect to see worse conditions when they travel to outlying areas.  One could see fires tonight, about a mile from the hospital, and Mark speculated that they were  burning those who had perished in the earthquake.

I will blog about this tomorrow once I receive photos. All he had for me tonight was the photo of the plane. Mark has always wanted to be a pilot (and I have always protested insisting it was dangerous),  so I am not surprised he sent me this picture first.  He is forever a funny guy.