Danielle's Day at Diquini Hospital - Wednesday

It was kinda nice to head back to work today, knowing what I was going to do, who I was going to help and even who my co-workers were.
I sat with one of the interpreters on my 90 minute bus ride this morning. His English was nearly perfect and he shared his recount of the earthquake with me. He described his home moving back and forth not knowing what was happening. He grabbed his 8 month old baby and wife and held them tight until it stopped. He could not get a hold of his mother on cell phone and was terrified she had died. He spent the next few hours trying to reach his mother's home. He could not find a taxi, nor a friend to help him. He said the streets were partially covered with rubble and he just walked/ran trying to get to her. He did get to his church where he found his father who had word his mother and siblings were alive. I could still hear the terror in his heart as he recounted the story. He said over the next few days the government did nothing as people piled up bodies of dead Haitians in front of there homes and storefronts. He said there were literally thousands of bodies lining the narrow, crumbled and already dirty streets. He said the smell was unbearable as they waited for the corrupt government to figure out what they were going to do. Ultimately they dug a big hole and the bodies were placed in a mass grave.
I asked him about Haiti before the Earthquake and he said it was already bad. He said lack of education is the problem. He said girls have babies they cannot raise, if you are born very poor it is nearly possible to turn it around and if you do start to compile any obvious resources you will be murdered or kidnapped. It is hard to imagine such an insightful young man living in such a world of despair.
He said only a handful of children can attend school due to cost. Kindergarten can cause $3000 initial fee plus $1000 a month - US dollars.
Basically Haiti is very much the same as before the Earthquake - a complete disaster area. Talk about having the most normal conversation with another insightful, well mannered, educated young Haitian.
I'm still in shock about the dirty and disgusting hospital. The patients are in the same hospital gowns, same sheets, same blood stains - just totally unbelievable. AND on arrival many of them tell me they have not had a meal since lunch the day prior. I gave her a bag of dry roasted edamame so I could give her a vicodin. Can you imagine a hospital without food for the patients? My cute little lady with a hip fracture was excited to do her exercises with me, however she was fixated at getting this leg lifter that her neighbor had been given the day prior. It took all day, but David a PT from Aruba did make her one. He kissed her. After I finished seeing my patients inside I headed outside to see patients in the tents. These are the ones that are doing too well to be in the hospital (or just needed the room), so they are in tents for PT only and to wait for hopeful prosthetics.
I met a lady there who broke my heart. She had an external fixator on her lower leg and had an already healed fractured pelvis (displaced). She started to cry as she told me her husband had been killed in the earthquake and she was not sure how she would care for her two small children. Her bright-eyed smiling boy could have been one of Josh's buddies on the playground. She said she had to put him to bed hungry last night. I gave her my last $7 and later brought her my trail mix. What do you say except for I'm so so sorry over and over again.
A MD from Cuba approached with with broken English at the end of the day. She was there with her team to start fitting the prosthetics over the next few days. I must have lost my mind when I was flagging a French interpreter as she started to speak Spanish. THANK GOD - SPANISH. I could handle that! So it looks like tomorrow and Friday will be filled with prosthetics/gait training!!
Please check my posts for updated pictures up to 48 hours later.

Danielle