Though there were countless patients Dr. Sunny Anand’s team from Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center treated during their two-week stay in Haiti last month, one remains indelibly etched in his memory. Anand described him as an older gentleman who’d sustained serious injuries to his leg from falling debris during the earthquake.

 

Despite his pain, the man was always polite, and endlessly patient. Living in cramped quarters and sweltering heat, he never failed to greet Anand each day as he passed by the tent, giving the doctor a progress report on his recovery, asking for advice and following his medical regime to the letter. The man’s upbeat spirit reminded Anand of why his team had come to Haiti: to provide healing and hope to people in great need.

 

Anand, director of critical care at Le Bonheur, led a pediatric surgical team of surgeons, internists, and staff on a medical relief mission to Haiti. The 13-member group was one of only seven pediatric hospitals nationally to respond to the disaster. The crew departed from Memphis on January 30, just two-and-a-half weeks after the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti. The quake, which was a magnitude 7.0, struck the island nation on January 12, the epicenter just 15 miles west of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. More than 220,000 people were killed in the disaster, many crushed under toppled buildings. An additional 300,000 were injured and more than 1 million people were left homeless.

 

Providing hope was what propelled President and CEO Meri Armour of Le Bonheur to call for the creation of the Le Bonheur Haiti Medical Relief Mission. Her decision came in response to a request she received from the National Association of Children’s Hosptials and Related Institutions, which asked its members across the nation to mobilize for the crisis in Haiti.

 

“The first report we got said there was only one pediatrician in Port-au-Prince so they were asking for special teams to respond,” said Armour. “Our mission here is easy. There’s no question to ask but ‘Will it make kids better?’ If it will, then of course, we’ll do it.”

 

Armour’s staff leadership agreed. Next, a call went out for volunteers within the hospital, while Armour got busy identifying resources in the community they could tap for support. Many businesses stepped forward: FedEx provided transportation, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital donated more than a $1 million in pharmaceuticals and medical prescriptions for everything from pain medication and antibiotics to rabies vaccine, ExtraOrtho Inc. provided external fixation devices to fix broken bones and fractures. And the Memphis Grizzlies collected $50,000 to help pay for security.

 

Thanks to Haiti Medical Missions of Memphis, led by Gordon Kraus, MD, the team had a base in Haiti from which to work. While they served at the clinic associated with St. John’s Seminary (it was also where they were housed), it soon became apparent that their location, more than an hour outside of the city, did not put them in direct contact with many earthquake victims.

 

But one nun at the seminary had been to Sacred Heart Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince. Seeing the workload the staff was managing, she knew Le Bonheur’s team would be put to better use there. Once arrangements were in place, the team boarded a bus for the hour-long ride into the city. At Sacred Heart, they worked alongside doctors from France, Canada, Britain, and Chile to care for the wounded. While many of the critically injured had been operated on in the days following the earthquake, the team found there was much need for corrective surgery. Trey Eubanks, MD, a pediatric surgeon remembered working on one 10-year-old boy whose arm had been severely broken and begun to heal improperly. “It was hard, high-end reconstructive surgery,” noted Eubanks of the six fractures they repaired. “Rehab will be a huge problem for the people there,” because the country lacks physical therapists as well as prosthetic devices.

 

The team learned that other health issues challenge the country as well. Dirty drinking water and a lack of hygiene puts people in danger of dehydration; malnutrition has also posed a serious threat. With tens of thousands of decomposing bodies still buried beneath tons of concrete, the city risks outbreaks of gastroenteritis and diarrheal diseases.  

 

“The entire population needs to be immunized against diarrheal diseases such as typhoid and cholera,” said Anand. It is of particular consequence for the many children in Port-au-Prince. In third-world countries, diarrheal disease is second only to pneumonia as the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. But with the Haitian government barely functioning, many teams like Le Bonheur's have had to communicate with each others’ to learn of the measures being taken to prevent infection and disease.

 

But thanks to the 40 pallets of medical supplies Le Bonheur was able to take, the doctors were well-prepared for the issues at-hand, including an unexpected case of rabies. Ironically, Anand commented that at one point, it seemed the country was “overrun” with surgeons from all over the world, “and there are too many cooks in the kitchen. The expectation was there would be lots more surgeries but those with severe injury have either already been operated on or have died.” Surgeons and doctors had also been seen practicing “beyond the scope of their training. It needs self-policing and that’s where professional ethics come into play because there’s no oversight, no way of ensuring that people do what they’re trained to do,” said Anand.