Arrival in Haiti

After a 40 hour journey, including a 9 hour delay in santo Domingo (American airlines had neglected to get clearance to land the plane), I have finally arrived. The delay was the hardest part; imagine a plane full of aid workers, medical professionals, and Haitians with family members in the hospital, stuck in an airport. Tensions were high and frustration was rampant: to us it seemed a day of help was wasted, a day of precious resources down the drain. To the Haitians trying to go home to see injured family members it was like torture; we were so close, yet so far away. 
Even arriving at night, I could still pick out the piles of rubble, the fallen concrete walls, and the tent cities that seem to have sprung up all over Port au  Prince (PAP). My heart ached for Haiti when the earthquake hit, and it ached even harder driving through the city last night and seeing the decimation.

We arrived late, past 10pm, so everyone was asleep already. Camp is reminiscent of treeplanting camps- cook shack, shitters, kitchen, and a heap of tents within a tight perimeter. In planting camp the perimeter is the bear fence; here it is the army perimeter, since we are provided security by our own French Canadian military group. They camp outside our perimeter and patrol at night. We are camped in a field, surrounded by the rubble of once-schools, and a tent city. A generator powers our camp. 
The major difference, of course, is that we treat patients here. Triage begins at 8am and the lineup outside is slowly brought inside for assessment and treatment. We have an OR, a private room curtained off by a flapping tarp in a corner of one tent, and the treatment tent houses some 8 cots, a random assortment of medical equipment and a whack of meds. 
This morning, between 8 and 12, we treated 77 patients. The acuity has lessened since the first team arrived; we don't use the OR much at all, and the majority of patients have colds or coughs or vaginal infections. Or malaria. 14 cases yesterday and 3 today. Thank goodness for coworkers who have just returned from asia with antimalarials!
Our field hospital is set in Leogane, about an hours drive from PAP and about 10 miles from the epicenter. 80% of the homes here were destroyed.

Despite all the horror, all the terror, I'm loving this. I'm loving the assessments, the people I work with, the work itself, the Haitians, the camp life, all of it. My body is protesting the intense heat, I think I'm currently working on my 6th or 7th liter of water! I'm filthy, covered in dirt, gloves are rare, and I'm learning so much. It feels so good to be doing this, to be helping in a meaningful way, to be useful to people who need it.  
On Monday we move to PAP to another field hospital, where our 7 person team (2 doctors, 2 paramedics, and 3 nurses) will treat the tent city near the golf course. That tent city is estimated to have 30,000 people, homeless and starting from scratch, living within it's shelters. More on that when it comes.....