Volume 18, No. 3, Summer 2010
After nearly four months, the focus on the tragedy in Haiti is beginning to fade. Donations are drying up and overextended healthcare volunteers are leaving the region.
But therapists from the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands (RHCI) are joining others to help fill that void.
Matthew Keilty, an occupational therapist from Mashpee, spent nearly two weeks in Haiti and he was followed there by Nora Kenneway, an outpatient occupational therapy supervisor from Marstons Mills, and Gordon Smith, an outpatient physical therapist from East Falmouth.
RHCI has teamed up with Partners in Health, a Boston-based non-profit healthcare organization, for this mission. The organization provides care in areas of extreme poverty around the world. It has been operating in Haiti for more than 20 years.
Mr. Keilty was based at the remains of the Hopital de l’ Universite d’etat d’Haiti in Port-au-Prince, which cared for 1,500 patients and housed 20 non-government organizations (NGO) in the days and weeks after the earthquake. When he arrived, there were still 350 patients needing care and only three NGOs remaining.
Mr. Keilty and his colleagues kept a journal of their experiences. “One patient had been buried under rubble with significant damage to his leg….With a little splinting material, Velcro and duct tape, we were able to create an AFO (an ankle-foot brace),” they wrote.
They described how “one treatment room contains 12 co-ed beds which are wide open and afford no privacy. Bathroom facilities include a few port-o-potties outside the building and buckets under patients’ beds.”
One of their patients is a 21-year-old man with a probable diagnosis of an incomplete spinal cord injury. “The patient had a concrete wall fall on his back and was pinned for six hours. He was dragged out of the rubble and left in the street for several days,” they write. Now attempting to walk to one of the port-o-potties, he must maneuver down a crowded hallway, up a ramp, over a large water hose and through clotheslines strewn with sheets. “Though the patient has no shoes, he insists on walking through the rubble covered with glass, garbage and used syringes. This is certainly not a scenario we would be faced with in the United States,” they add.
Another female patient suffered paralysis on her left side due to a stroke.
They wrote, “She is sitting precariously on the edge of a concrete bench with two exhausted friends by her side. We wonder how she managed to make it out there without a wheelchair. Her two friends respond that it took them 30 minutes to drag her there. In order to avoid the same return trip, we find a stationary chair and carry her back to her bed.
“There is a huge need for help here and we hope that others will decide to come to help these beautiful people who are in desperate need of treatment. It has been an honor and privilege to do this work, and we look forward to continuing it.”
After hearing how Mr. Keilty’s team had to improvise to make a brace, Mr. Smith said he was thinking about loading his backpack with rolls of duct tape. “We know we’re going to be working lots of hours and will confront many different situations,” he said, “But it’s a chance to make a real difference.”