Haiti experience part 4 - Nursing in Haiti

Ever since I got back from Haiti, a lot of my coworkers has asked me what it is like to be a nurse in Haiti. My answer has always been, nursing in Haiti is nothing like nursing in Canada that's for sure. First of all, the equipments we used were like from dinosaur age. Before this trip, I've never seen a glass Pleurovac jar, or old metal suctions that shake so violently when it's on that it looks like it would explode any minute, or gigantic oxygen tanks that takes two people to roll in and out... But here in Haiti, we have them all. We definitely don't have the same luxury as health care professionals in North America. Everything was valuable and precious in Haiti. Everything that can be reduced, reused, and recycled are in fact, reduced, reused, and recycled. Coming from a society that wastes tons and tons of medical supply for safety purposes, this was hard to get use to, yet refreshing at the same time. The few things we did have in Haiti, they broken down frequently. I don't know how many times our "maintenance guy Jeff" had to fix the old suctions we had. By the end of the trip, it was no longer surprising to see a needle that retract because it's stuck to the plunger, or to turn on the suction that shakes violently but doesn't suck, or to tape the back of OR gowns with tape because the velcros on the gowns have melted...

Every time something broke or malfunctioned in Haiti, we would fondly say, hey, we are in Haiti, nothing is surprising, we need to do things Haitian style. Then we would pick up where we left off and come up with  creative ways to make things work. It's amazing how inventive we got with the things we had. We learned to be flexible, adaptive, and easygoing. Although we didn't have the best equipments, it really was medical care at its best.

Our humble little recovery room

In two weeks, we did 98 surgeries in the operating room, and a bunch of minor surgeries in the minor room. Majority of the surgeries went well, but of course, we were not without loss. Our very first patient was a patient who needed intensive debridement on her leg. She told us that she was chopping wood with her father over a year ago when a tree fell on her leg. This incident caused a cut on her leg. It wasn't a severe cut, but she didn't have any money to go to the hospital to get it treated. Then she developed a severe infection in the cut which result in necrotic tissue all the way from her shin to her thigh. The infection raged into her blood stream and she was quite sick when she came to us. Looking at her wound, I was in disbelief. I mean, something like this wouldn't happen in Canada. People with a minor cut would come to the hospital and get adequate treatment. It would never reach to the point where we would need to do extensive debridement. Anyways, after the debridement, we had to take her back to the OR to get her leg amputated. Then few days after the surgery, her hemoglobin dropped quite significantly. Of course in Haiti, there is no such thing as blood bank, so my team mates with the same blood type rolled up their sleeves and donated their blood. As I helped to agitate the bags of blood to prevent the blood cells from clotting. and watching the blood pouring out from my team mate's body, I kept thinking just how beautiful this is. God gave us the commandment to serve others, and to me, this was true service. It was ordinary people placing other people's needs before their own. I wish I had a better ending to this story, but unfortunately I don't. In the middle of the blood transfusion, our beloved patient passed away.  

We all struggled with the loss and we shed tears for our her. Quite a few of the medical staffs have grown quite close to her. For me though, I didn't know her. I've only met her briefly before she was given anesthetics on the OR table. I cried because I felt defeated. I think as medical professionals, we pride ourselves in saving lives. We are always fighting death trying to keep patients alive. But we forget that ultimately, it's not us that's in control, it's God. As I cried and prayed, feeling depleted and defeated, God reminded me that although it may be a defeat for me, it is a victory for Him. This lady had accepted Christ few days before she passed away. She had said that she was thankful she came to the clinic because if she hasn't, she wouldn't have known Christ. So although we couldn't do anything for her physically, she did find peace in Christ and for that, I am thankful. The verse I was reminded was,

"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain." Psalm 127:1

The other story I wanted to share about my nursing experience in Haiti are the kids waiting for surgery. As a circulating nurse, I had the "glorious" job of taking kids into the OR onto the OR table. I expected screaming, kicking, punching, like the kids in North America. But I was pleasantly surprised. Here we are, a bunch of foreigners leading these kids away from their parents into this mysterious room they've never seen before, yet these kids showed calmness, trust, and bravery. When I walk into the preop room, all the kids look at me with these big round fearful eyes. But when I smile at them, they all break into these big beautiful smiles. Then when I give them my hand to take them into the OR room, they hold onto my hand so tight with so much trust. Their maturity and their bravery never cease to amazed me.

One of our brave little ones

One of my favorite memories of the trip involves a little boy who needed a nephrectomy. For some reason I just had such a soft spot for this little boy with the most amazing wide smile. So after we finished in the OR, I went to the recovery room to see him. There was no family members by his bedside. He looked so small and fragile lying on this big bed all by himself. I sat next to him and held his little hands. He opened his eyes and looked at me, then he give me his million dollar smile. Then he reached up and put his hand on my face, pulled me close and hugged me. It was a precious moment that I hope I never forget.