A witness of assessment and importance of HAM medical response to
the earthquake.
Les Cayes, Haiti
On August 14th 2021 a 7.2 magnitude earthquake tore through infrastructure leaving countless individuals wounded, hospitals overwhelmed and thousands seeking medical care in Haiti. The earthquake has injured over 6,000 and taken the lives of almost 2,000 people with the death toll rising by the minute. Many structures have been destroyed leaving thousands homeless as a tropical storm battered the island just one day after the earthquake, causing landslides and flash flooding. The epicenter of the earthquake was out on the southern peninsula of Haiti where road access is difficult in the best of times, now exacerbated by tropical storm. Healing Art Mission’s (HAM), a nonprofit organization founded in 1998 and based in Granville, Ohio, was among the first NGO’s to reach Les Cayes, the largest city close to the epicenter, mobilizing a coordinated team made of surgeons, orthopedist, anesthesiologist, and wounds care specialist to cover the emergency, essential surgical care and trauma related to the victims of the earthquake there and those in the Nippes area.
HAM’s primary projects in Haiti focus on the fundamental issues of community-based healthcare, education, clean water, and employment, hiring Haitians to run the operations with financial and material resources provided by the organization. Fortunately, HAM’s staff was uninjured and their facilities intact from the earthquake. HAM’s Medical Director, Dr. Jean Fritz Jacques, and the HAM Board of Directors, recognized the organization was in a unique strategic position to respond to the crisis. Adapting that same model, Dr. Jacques structured a fast and effective response plan to the earthquake that would empower local professionals and medical specialists to manage the medical response by providing them with critical resources.
Notre Dames Hospital in Les Cayes.
The first step was to solicit a current assessment of the situation on the ground from the directors of General Hospital in Les Cayes and Hospital Notre Dame. To complete the assessment, Dr. Jacques also consulted with the frontline workers, the first group of residents from the Surgery Department of Haiti State University Hospital that had been sent to Les Cayes.
With emergency funding provided by the Together Rising foundation within days of the Earthquake, and a current assessment, Dr. Jacques negotiated partnerships with the Haitian Association of Surgeons, the Surgery Department of Haiti State University Hospital, and the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP). These partners are providing trauma surgeons, orthopedists and anesthesiologists along with wound care experts, nurses and administration support, in an organized effort led by Dr. Jacques. Additional partners from the affected areas include the Nippes Healthcare Headquarters, and Sainte Therese Hospital of Miragoane, and General Hospital and Hospital Notre Dame, both in Les Cayes.
Orthopedics specialist performed surgery with resident
doctors. This project in Les Cayes is a training one as well as
disaster response.
A major challenge in Haiti is that local and governmental Haitian organizations lack the resources to support any robust response required of such an emergency of this magnitude. Through the multiple partnerships Dr. Jacques has negotiated and the initial funding from Together Rising to pay the Haitian medical teams and purchase any available medical supplies, HAM has helped mount a significant response to the Earthquake.
Since August 14th, in addition to the initial patient load directly following the earthquake, many additional patients have presented at the intervention sites with neglected fractures handled by local voodoo priests. Others had neglected fractures because they could not afford the costs of the procedure. Additional patients arrived well after with all sorts of fracture complications because of non-standardized care related to the trauma provided by non-specialist. It is necessary to identify and treat such vital threats especially open fractures, closed fractures with compartment syndrome, infected wounds with necrotizing fasciitis.
Memorandum of understanding with institutions with Dr Viard PDG of
Notre Dames Hospital in Les Cayes.
As of August 25th, the team has performed the following procedures:
• 21 fractures of the upper limbs
• 41 fractures of the lower limbs
• 10 ulcerative necrotic wounds
• 40 cases requiring cleaning and sutures only
• 16 wound dressings
• 15 wound care
• 6 other
* NOTE: there were other cases treated outside of these institutions, as well as in Hospital Immaculee Conception des Cayes not counted in the above.