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With Limited Supplies, Columbia Doctors and Nurses Provide Care in Haiti

March 26, 2010Bookmark and Share
Sick and injured patients fill a makeshift emergency clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.A makeshift traction system fashioned out of cement blocks and casting material for a patient with bilateral femur fractures, a common injury to many earthquake victims (Image credit: Jennifer Schwieger)A toppled church in Port-Au-Prince (Image credit: Jeff Kinyon)The view overlooking one of Haiti's many tent villages (Image credit: Jeff Kinyon)Jennifer Schwieger, one of Columbia's International Emergency Medicine fellows, applies a splint to a patient with a broken leg in the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince. (Image credit: Jennifer Schwieger)The six doctors from Columbia's International Emergency Medicine Fellowship and other International Medical Corps volunteers in Haiti (Image credit: Jeff Kinyon)Sick and injured patients fill the courtyard of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, as many of the hospital's buildings were destroyed after the earthquake. (Image credit: Jennifer Schwieger)80,000 people were living in tents on a golf course. Clinical nursing professor Richard Garfield said a thousand more people were moving in each day. (Image credit: Jeff Kinyon)A woman and child outside a clinic in a camp for internally displaced persons in Beatrice/Petit Goave (Image credit: Ayman Yassa)

Click the image to view a slideshow of photos taken by Columbia doctors volunteering in Haiti. camera

 
Since Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake, Columbia doctors and nurses have been on the ground as part of the relief effort and are now helping local organizations rebuild the country’s healthcare system. Their pictures provide just a glimpse into the challenges of providing care amidst the devastation.
 
Six doctors affiliated with Columbia’s International Emergency Medicine Fellowship, a joint program of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, were in Haiti immediately following the earthquake as part of a collaboration with the International Medical Corps, a nongovernmental organization. They were among a number of students and recent alumni serving in Haiti as first responders through organizations such as Partners in Health, United Nations Children’s Fund and the U.S. Navy.
  
The doctors worked alongside other professionals in tents erected in the streets, sidewalks and grassy areas around the destroyed hospital. The beds of patients were outside too, sometimes in the open air or among a grove of trees. They stayed in Haiti for roughly four weeks, working mostly in Port-au-Prince but also in rural clinics.
  
The School of Nursing has also sent faculty and alumni to Haiti through the International Medical Corps —18 so far—and will continue to do so on a weekly basis. It has partnered with the Haitian national university nursing school as part of its commitment to help rebuild Haiti’s nursing infrastructure. The university nursing school was damaged significantly during the earthquake and much of its staff was killed or wounded.

 

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