Boston medical teams fan out from Haitian capital

On Thursday, two days after the earthquake shattered the fragile country, Cranmer and her  colleagues from Harvard teaching hospitals saw Port-au-Prince unfold from a helicopter they flew from Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the guests of a Dominican  government official. They saw fires from the air, then collapsed buildings, then people living in tents or on the streets. They landed at the Dominican embassy, next door to a demolished children's hospital in Port-au-Prince.

Cranmer connected with Dr. Louise Ivers of Partners In Health  -- who had survived a building collapse -- to work at an impromptu hospital set up next to temporary United Nations headquarters.

"By the time we got there, there were 150 patients, with their family members. Many had broken bones. All of them were complex fractures, with bones sticking out, and infected skin. All we could provide were first aid and bandages and no real surgery at all," Cranmer said in an interview yesterday from the airport in Miami. "You could clean it, and maybe if you could find the right antibiotic in the right box, you could give it. Maybe you could start an IV if you could find an IV." 

"It was very hard because everybody knows what to do to take care of patients, but we couldn't fix things the way that we are used to," she said.

Cranmer's team shifted its focus to parts of Haiti outside of Port-au-Prince, where people are also still waiting for medical care. They will work with Partners In Health, which has a long history in the rural parts of the country, to ensure that the support will continue once volunteers have left.

"It's really important to figure out how to get Haitians to those areas, as well as help where Partners in Health has already been established, so they will continue to care for the people when you go away," she said. "We plan to have a sustainable and supportive presence for as long as necessary,  at the direction of Partners In Health."

This morning two planes were scheduled to carry 13 Caritas Christi doctors and nurses and basic medical supplies left Boston for a hospital 75 miles north of Port-Au-Prince, in a region less damaged by last week's earthquake. Dr. Mark Pearlmutter, chief of emergency medicine at Caritas Christi, is accelerating a plan already in the works to help the Hopital Sacre Coeur in Milot build an emergency department. He will find an improvised triage center of tents and cots at the hospital's front door, where as of Monday about 75 patients had been brought from the quake zone for treatment.

Most of the patients are suffering from crushing injuries, infections from open wounds, and the need for amputation, Pearlmutter said in an interview.

"From what I've seen [in news reports], I am not sure what to expect. It'll be very disturbing and I think a lot of havoc. And I'm hopeful we can help restore some sense of order," he said. "We aren't going to be at the epicenter. I think to the extent we have some intact infrastructure and power, we'll be  better off where we are than in other sectors."

The Caritas mission is being funded by nearly $1 million in medical equipment and supplies from Philips Healthcare and $2 million from Caritas and other donors. John Fish of Suffolk Construction  provided a chartered jet for the medical team.