|
 |
Léogâne, Haiti - How HHNP came to be...
Haitian Nurses became heroes overnight
The only safe ‘healthcare’ was at the Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l’Université Episcopale d’Haïti in Léogâne (FSIL). In Haiti where there is only 1 nurse for every 10,000 persons. The FSIL School of Nursing (supported by the Haiti Nursing Foundation [HNF]) became the center of hope for the hundreds and thousands of trauma patients in Léogâne. It was a handfull of students, three recently grnaduated nurses and Michele - working together across long days - without an international aid.
Nurses for Nurses International’s (NFNI) Founder and CEO, Michele Sare, arrived in Haiti less than an hour before the earthquake hit. Instead of tbeing able to assess what it would take to teach a public health course, Sare worked side-by-side with three new FSIL graduates and about 15 nursing students. They converted the grass lawn surrounding the FSIL School of Nursing into an emergency clinic.
In the first five days, the Haitian Nurses, students, and Sare treated over 1000 in worse than meager conditions. A few Haitian physicians came and went - unable to to practice their profession without x-rays, labratories or surgery suites. Life saving care was given without the use of electricity, limited supplies that had come from the School’s skills lab, no safe water, small amounts of Lidocaine and hand sanitizer, not enough gloves or dressings, and no splints or traction beyond the use of cardboard boxes or whatever could be pulled from the rubble.
They were forced to work outside as the intensity of over 40 aftershocks continued to threaten what buildings remained. With exceedingly limited supplies of tape, cling and ‘ace wraps’, few antibiotics, only some acetaminophen and ibuprofen for analgesics, and hardly any IV and suture supplies, they were severely restrained their ability to provide the care that the beautiful people of Léogâne so desperately needed and deserved. But, against all odds, many lives were saved.
Despite the hardships in front of them, the three nursing graduates, students, and Sare worked with patients to clean, dress, stabilize, diagnose, comfort, suture, amputate, hydrate, deliver babies and offer what little pain relief they could to victims presenting with the most violent of trauma, including crushing injuries, compound fractures, fractured femurs and pelvises, massive head injuries, and internal injuries. Within a few days of the quake, people started coming to them with gangrene, rotted tissue, and sepsis.
The work of nursesg was the only epicenter of care and of hope for the area of 300,000. Nursing went to work...
Haitian Nurses became heroes overnight
Léogâne, a city of about 200,000 - and over 100,000 in the catchment area - was at the epicenter of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th, 2010. A United Nations assessment team found that Léogâne was "the worst affected area" with 80 to 90% of buildings damaged and no remaining government infrastructure. The only hospital had not been functioning for three years due to few medical staff or administration. The structure was damaged severely enough to render it inoperable.
The only safe ‘healthcare’ was at the Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l’Université Episcopale d’Haïti in Léogâne (FSIL). In Haiti where there is only 1 nurse for every 10,000 persons. The FSIL School of Nursing (supported by the Haiti Nursing Foundation [HNF]) became the center of hope for the hundreds and thousands of trauma patients in Léogâne. It was a handfull of students, three recently grnaduated nurses and Michele - working together across long days - without an international aid.
Nurses for Nurses International’s (NFNI) Founder and CEO, Michele Sare, arrived in Haiti less than an hour before the earthquake hit. Instead of tbeing able to assess what it would take to teach a public health course, Sare worked side-by-side with three new FSIL graduates and about 15 nursing students. They converted the grass lawn surrounding the FSIL School of Nursing into an emergency clinic.
In the first five days, the Haitian Nurses, students, and Sare treated over 1000 in worse than meager conditions. A few Haitian physicians came and went - unable to to practice their profession without x-rays, labratories or surgery suites. Life saving care was given without the use of electricity, limited supplies that had come from the School’s skills lab, no safe water, small amounts of Lidocaine and hand sanitizer, not enough gloves or dressings, and no splints or traction beyond the use of cardboard boxes or whatever could be pulled from the rubble.
They were forced to work outside as the intensity of over 40 aftershocks continued to threaten what buildings remained. With exceedingly limited supplies of tape, cling and ‘ace wraps’, few antibiotics, only some acetaminophen and ibuprofen for analgesics, and hardly any IV and suture supplies, they were severely restrained their ability to provide the care that the beautiful people of Léogâne so desperately needed and deserved. But, against all odds, many lives were saved.
Despite the hardships in front of them, the three nursing graduates, students, and Sare worked with patients to clean, dress, stabilize, diagnose, comfort, suture, amputate, hydrate, deliver babies and offer what little pain relief they could to victims presenting with the most violent of trauma, including crushing injuries, compound fractures, fractured femurs and pelvises, massive head injuries, and internal injuries. Within a few days of the quake, people started coming to them with gangrene, rotted tissue, and sepsis.
The work of nursesg was the only epicenter of care and of hope for the area of 300,000. Nursing went to work...
NFNI is committed to sharing the stories of these Haitian Nursing Heroes who used their education and what inadequate resources they had to save many.
Please view the rest of the Hope for Haiti's Nurses Project 'About HHNP' page to learn more about these magnificnet nurses - the difference thay they make in the world - and how you can get involved to help these amazing people who give so much.
"Michele Sare of Nurses for Nurses International arrived less than an hour before the January 12th earthquake hit Haiti and stayed to work at an impromptu emergency clinic set up on lawn surrounding the FSIL School of Nursing in Léogâne where she met true heroes."
After five days of working with dwindling resources and almost running out of water, news crews, Doctors without Borders, and the UN finally realized the severity of destruction in Léogâne and arrived with supplies and help. Sare, per the US Government’s policy, returned to the US and began writing down the stories of the people, which you can read about in the new e-book Today, Leogane.
This is for the people of Haiti, so that the world can know what they have sacrificed and what they have done.
sare.michele@gmail.com