Jan. 24, 2010
Port au Prince, Haiti -- When a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on January 12 at 4:53 PM hospital employees fled. Many themselves suffered the effects of Port au Prince's devastating quake. Hospitals that did not collapse were virtually abandoned by Haitian doctors, nurses and administrators. Patients were left alone. Health care facilities that were not structurally damaged became trauma centers for US medical teams responding to Haiti's need.
As news of the quake spread around the world, American medical professionals flew into the Dominican Republic and drove across the border into Haiti. Some even chartered private planes to rush to Haitian victims need. They brought supplies, machines, everything they could carry including their living quarters - tents and sleeping bags.
Yesterday Haitian hospital personnel began to return to work. They found their understaffed inefficent businesses were miraculously treating double their capacity. Dressings are changed daily when necessary, and meds are dispersed immediately and free of charge. Patients are handed their records so they can get follow up treatment at any of the field hospitals set up in and around Port au Prince.
Early morning organizational meetings previously run by professional disaster response coordinators are now conducted by indifferent Haitian hospital directors and administrators.
In a meeting at the Hopital Communautaire on Rue Frere, Delmas yesterday a Haitain doctor insisted that all patient records be kept by the hospital. There is a shopping bag of such records behind the admission window already. An American orthopedic surgeon was stunned by the demand, "If you do that your hospital will be more dysfunctional than it already is."
Outside the hospital Haitians live under sheets strung between trees and in the open on cardboard covered with a sheet. They are homeless, they are wounded, they have no cash. Inside Haitian staff are locking the donated supplies in depots and charging for every prescription, x-ray and IV bag.
At Haiti's Baptist Mission Hospital a 25 year old Haitian woman was in critical condition her blood type was necessary to get donor blood for a transfusion. An American doctor walked with her missionary translator to the lab, the order for the blood coding in her hand. The laboratory door was shut and padlocked, it was a half hour before closing time.
The missionary asked the guard where the lab tech was, he said she went home. A few moments later the guard returned with the lab tech and the results were in the doctor's hand. A donor was found and the Haitian patient's life was spared.
In the OR where the transfusion was performed the missionary told the Haitian American nurse about the lab being shut thirty minutes early. The nurse said, "I will go and talk to her now."
The next morning when the missionary came to begin another fifteen hour day translating for the American medical team the Haitian Baptist Hospital Administrator told her, "Your services are no longer needed here."
The culture of indifference in Haiti dictates tacit compliance with inefficency and negligence, even if it costs lives. The missionary translator who reported the lab's early closing had violated that cultural rule.
Today the American doctors continued work at the Haiti Baptist Mission Hospital is in jeopardy if that missionary translator is allowed to help them communicate with their suffering Haitian patients. They have been warned by the Haitian Administrator.
The twenty five year old Haitian woman survived.
Yvonne Melchionne Trimble: Many make it through the night and some don't, wails of grief reduce US medical personnel to tears as a Haitian man laments the lost of his pregnant wife and unborn child. Jesus show us mercy.
Jan. 22, 2010, afternoon
Yvonne Melchionne Trimble: Today will doing rounds in the Baptist Mission Hospital another tremor rattled the building and the hearts of paitents crying out for God's help.
Jan. 22, 2010, shortly after noon.
Haiti Survivor - Rose Michelle
January 22, 2010;
Port au Prince, Haiti -- Everyday since a 7.0 quake destroyed much of Port au Prince Haiti, medical teams from around the world are arriving to assist the wounded. Port au Prince's hospitals have never afforded Haitians enough capacity or expertise, until this week. Usually Haitians respond to their hospitals as turn of the century death wards where they go as a last resort to die. Since the January 12 quake that has changed.
At the Baptist Hospital in the mountains surrounding Port au Prince traumatized survivors are benefiting from the dedication and skill of American doctors and nurses. Medical teams work for a week until another team arrives to relieve them. Fifteen hour days are the norm. This process will continue until everyone is seen and followed up.
Dilapitated beds with ancient mattresses fill four dank wards on the mission hospital. Hallway floors are littered with patients until a bed is free. A rusty bed is better than the tile floor and Americans check on patients four times a day. No one is overlooked or forgotten.
In ward MF, bed number 2 is an eight year old girl. Rose Michelle was in her two room block house when the quake struck on Tuesday, January 12. Concrete blocks fell pinning her to the ground. She has a deep wound on her right arm but that is nothing compared to the pelvic fracture that prevents little Rose from sitting or standing.
At first Rose Michelle screamed when someone in scrubs appeared. Shots, IVs, drawing blood it all hurts so much. Today Rose was all smiles, first there was the painless sonogram.
A portable machine brought by the Americans revealed no ruptured organs and no broken bones. Then the American pediatric nurse removed the irritating catheter. And finally wonder of wonders Rose was visited by Haiti's American missionary and television celebrity, Frere Joel.
Joel Trimble a missionary evangelist to Haiti since 1975 hosts a Creole Christian television show La Bonne Nouvelle. For five years now Trimble's show holds the number one slot for all programming viewed in Haiti. La Bonne Nouvelle, The Good News, is aired 46 times a week throughout the country and the US east coast. The show is on 13 television stations. Rose is an avid fan of Frere Joel, Brother Joel.
Trimble's wife, Yvonne, translates for American doctors at the Baptist Hospital. While diverting the child's attention during a stressful blood test Yvonne learned eight year old Rose Michelle was a fan of the couple's show. Yvonne promised Rose if she drank her liquids Frere Joel would come to visit her and he did.
Yvonne Melchionne Trimble: Started at 7:00AM quit at 10:00PM, back at it tomorrow, translating for Samaritian Purse doctors at the Baptist Hospital - and my Creole is sooooo bad.
Jan. 21, 2010 at 11:08pm
Yvonne Melchionne Trimble: Translating Hait Baptist Mission
Jan. 21, 2010 at 6:44am
Yvonne Melchionne Trimble: 6.1 earthquake at 6:00AM shook the bed and rumbled us awake. Just when we thought it was all over!
Jan. 20 at 8:32am
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About Yvonne Trimble
I have been a missionary in Haiti since 1978. My husband, Joel, and I produce a Creole Christian television show that features the beauty of Haiti and its people. We are on in Haitian communities on the east coast of the US, Boston, NY, West Palm Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale. In addition our thirty minute travel log is on Tele Nationale, Tele Haiti and Tele Lumiere in Haiti. La Bonne Nouvelle, The Good News, is viewed by an estimated six (6) million Haitians in the US and Haiti everyday.
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Yvonne and her husband Joel have been missionaries in Haiti for 33 years.
Haiti for Christ
Items repeated here from other sources to expand exposure to Yvonne's dispatches about Haiti earthquake relief efforts.
Note: Yvonne and Anthony (Uncle Tonoose) attended school together in Nutley, N.J.
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Carnival
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