Orthopedic Ministries of the Caribbean: Day 6

Today, Wednesday, was another busy day, we split our time again with Leah and I working at the hospital and Andrew and Jonathan at the orphanage. We did 7 cases today, we ran 2 rooms again and I was able to run the anesthesia for a few cases. We did a surgery on Wilner today, he had a windswept deformity of his legs, with the left being more distorted. We were able to straighten his legs and he should be able to walk normal again soon. The pictures of the correction are pretty impressive, check out my facebook for them. We also did several cases where we installed external fixators for various reasons. The hospital provided a recovery room nurses so Leah was able to float around help in both rooms and check in on the recovering patients. She is getting pretty good with the C-arm. I was able to put in a few more spinal blocks and even intubated one patient (Wilner from above).

The guys finished at the orphanage today. The wall is complete and the tin roof has been installed over the outdoor kitchen. We also built in some stairs to their very steep hillside to make it easier to get around. They hung some chalkboards for the kids to play with and practice their school work. We also hung a new tarp to give them some shade and bought them bunk beds and mattresses. We bought them enough food to last a solid month or longer. We did all this for under $1,000. Our next project is going to be to terrace their front hillside. There is a space about 20 feet wide and 30 feet long that is on their property. The problem is that it is so steep you can’t even walk on it. And it’s covered in loose gravel over solid rock. For $300 we will be able to terrace the area into three levels and haul up dirt to plan veggies. We think/hope this would not only provide enough room to grow all the food they need to eat (and healthy, nutritious food instead of rice and cornmeal) plus have enough food left over to sell at the market and help provide their other needs. So far a few hundred dollars we can help make then entire orphanage self sufficient and thus provide them with a better, stable future. Mary Erickson (the wife of Terry’s partner Eric) is going to Haiti in August, I hope to talk with her a find a way to send her the money to complete the project then. If you want to help make this idea a reality let me know.

One more day tomorrow, should be a long surgery day. The other guys plan to make one final orphanage run to buy food for all the kids (over 100 mouths that need to be feed for the next month). We are off to dinner tonight, one of the docs here, Ian Alexander, is taking the whole team to the Auberge restaurant.