Transcript: (all pictures by Anna Sale)
In Haiti, the transition from night to day is fast. We're closer to the equator, so the sun rises quickly and dawn slips by in an instant.
But morning never sneaks up on you. The rooster makes sure of that.
Just like the daylight, the day's busyness here comes quickly. By 8am, the town is bustling with traffic. School children in uniforms line both sides of the town's main dirt road on their way to school.
“Bonjour. Hi! (laughs).”
This is my dad, Bill Sale, an orthopedic surgeon from Charleston.
“I just love this morning scene here.”
We're walking along the road too, and everything seems remarkably normal.
Two months after the earthquake, the pace of helicopters arriving with new patients has slowed to a trickle. The soccer field that was its landing strip is back to hosting games every evening.
As we approach town, on our left is the hospital that has served this small rural community since 1986. On the right is the operation that opened in mid-January. There are five long tents that house those injured in the Port au Prince earthquake.
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On this morning, my dad heads first into the hospital. Within minutes, he is putting two tiny casts on a nine-day-old baby, to treat his club feet. Over the baby's shrieks, my dad stretches and bends each foot so each heel lies up straight.
Pictured: Orthopedic surgeon Bill Sale putting casts on the Haitian boy.
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The focus here is slowly returning to this kind of routine medical care for the local community. The emergency from the earthquake is passing.
Still, memories of those early days are fresh.
“Some of these people, when they come in, they haven't had any pain medicine or anything. They just come in screaming.”
Patrick Etienne is the head translator at the hospital.
“When you're looking at a little girl, you see the bone from their legs just sticking out. You know, it's been a couple of days and it looks like it's starting to rot, I don't care if you're the worst person on earth, tears just, it comes out. You can't control it.”
For those patients injured in the earthquake, needed amputations have been performed and plates and screws are stabilizing broken bones. At the Hopital Sacre Coeur this week, it's less about extensive medical surgeries, and more about rehabilitation and therapy.
“Yes. (clap, clap, clap) Very good.”
That's where my mom, June Sale, comes in. She's a physical therapist.
“Excellent.”
This process is slower. It involves one-on-one stretching and teaching how to walk with crutches, then a walker, then finally without any aid at all. There's a lot of counting to ten … un, deux, trois...
| Pictured: Physical therapist June Sale going over a patients chart after a therapy session. |
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Progress comes in waves here because, unlike most hospitals, the patients in the earthquake tents all have injuries that date back to one, single day: January 12.
That's when 17-year-old Joseph Mackson broke his arm and his leg.
“(Creole)"
Translator: "The house fell on him."
"
(Creole)"
"The whole family was inside at the time. He just happened to be the lucky one.”
Joseph's father, mother, and sister died in the earthquake. He has no family left in Port au Prince, and his home was destroyed. After multiple surgeries, Joseph is now walking on his own and his knee is getting less stiff by the day.
He's ready for medical discharge. But here's where the other questions come in. Where will he go when he leaves? Maybe he'll go back to Port au Prince alone. Maybe to the rural village where his mother came from. Or maybe he'll go abroad, if he's able to get paperwork.
In West Virginia, private home health workers and hospital social workers oversee this transition. In Milot, Haiti, all these issues fall on the shoulders of Dr. Harold Previl, the hospital's medical director.
“We have patients now here who are totally cured and who are ready to be discharged, but they do not want to go back to Port au Prince, because the main request is to see if we can provide them with a tent. We are knocking on all this doors that we can. It has not been successful yet.”
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Pictured: Children who were injured in the earthquake, at a daily dance party outside the tents for earthquake patients. |
Wrestling with these issues keeps Jenny Woodson and Martha Minter busy all week. They're both social workers from Kanawha County.
“You know the other thing we need to check in Port au Prince is the supplies that are needed, the wheelchairs?”
Martha: In Port au Prince? Okay...”
This part was draining. First there was news of donated tents, but then that offer disappeared. Then, they tried to connect with organizations based in Port au Prince, only to get foiled by irregular internet service and bad phone numbers.
They compared it to banging your head against the wall, when you couldn't even find the wall.
But after a week in Milot, Haiti, this was not what stuck out for Martha.
“I'm touched by their genuine hearts and genuine caring that they have for one another. And I'm also touched by the volunteers here, that they're all just here to give and do. It's quite touching. Very powerful.”
We walked through the town to the market where women sell each other fresh vegetables, charcoal, and beans and rice.
“Bonjour!”
By now many faces were familiar. So much transcends language, Martha said.
“Like caring, and goodwill, and laughter and sadness.”
And song.
Every day at noon, the women in one of the tents got out their hymnals to sing.
(fade in gospel music, sung in creole)
This is Marie-Genese Pompee, a 23-year-old woman from Port au Prince. She's lost her left arm and left leg. The song she sings is the spiritual “Farther Along.”
"Sometimes I wonder why I suffer...
Farther Along, I will see Jesus...
Farther Along, I will understand why..."
| We prepared to leave Haiti in the midst of this transition. We cannot guess what will happen farther on, how quickly this darkness will turn to light.
Pictured: Young women at the daily dance party. |
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For the medical problems, the team from West Virginia had ready solutions.
The bigger questions – what future lies ahead for these patients and for their country – those still hung in the air as we took off, bound for home.