Editor’s Note: Meet our good friend, Dr. Eric Meyer. He’s a lead product developer with Talus Outdoor Tech and the team doctor with Yogaslackers. In addition to being an accomplished mountain climber, yogi and adventure racer, Dr. Meyer is also a global humanitarian, traveling the world offering medial aid to folks who need it most. He recently got back from Haiti and sent us an account of his relief efforts there. What he saw there is tough to comprehend. We’re so impressed by him and the others who used their skills and talents in the most important way. –Hilary
Dr. Eric Meyer in Haiti
From Eric Meyer, M.D.–It’s taken a few weeks to process the experience I had of helping out with medical relief over in Haiti to be able to write about it. I recall thinking to myself after learning of the earthquake…”What can I do, and when?” Fortunately I was able to break away from my work as a freelance anesthesiologist, and with the logistical support of the organization Wyoming Haiti Relief, I found myself on a corporately-donated flight from Atlanta to Port au Prince with a Wyoming EMT named Curt Orde.
Our mission was to scout out a location in an area called Gressier, about an hour and a half west of Port au Prince, which had had no medical assistance in the two weeks following the quake. This site was within a few miles of the epicenter; obvious in the utter destruction of almost every building, collapsed hillsides, and large clefts in the one paved road running west of Port au Prince. We joined with a group of 4 other physicians(two American, a Brazilian, and a Cuban), along with half a dozen nurses and support staff to set up a medical triage clinic, where, for several days, we were seeing up to 200 patients a day. These were very shell-shocked, stressed people. There were a variety of ailments presenting in the population, ranging in age from a few months to 80 years. These were mostly infected wounds, respiratory and eye disorders associated with the contaminated conditions, and a variety of untreated chronic illnesses (high blood pressure, diabetes, stomach ulcers, skin diseases). As you might expect, it was necessary to improvise a lot with equipment and medicine. The gratitude of the Haitian people was amazing. Many brought what little food they had to share with us. Through interpreters, they would say over and over again in their native Creole, “Thank you for not forgetting about the people of this country.”
Haiti has had the unfortunate combination of circumstances whereby its natural resources have been depleted by a succession of corrupt dictators, along with the fact that most of those with any education or skilled labor have left or been forced to flee the country. The poorest country in the western hemisphere, they were ill-equipped to deal with what has turned out to be likely the worst natural catastrophe in history: more than 230,000 dead, a quarter million injured, and 1.2 million left homeless…
While in Haiti, we learned of a critical shortage of help at a field surgical hospital being run at the site of an orphanage called Love a Child at Fond Parisien, about an hour east of Port au Prince. We made our way there through the chaos of Port au Prince. This was a rural setting where many had fled to from the ruins of the city, as well as a site to transfer patients needing longer term care from the UNS Comfort hospital ship just off the coast. The census hovered around 300 patients, along with several thousand displaced persons nearby in similar tent compounds. There were two operating tents, in which we did mostly wound debridement and skin grafts, extremity fracture repairs, and amputation stump revisions. Out in the tent ward, I did the best I could to make sure patients had adequate pain relief, either with oral/intravenous medicine, or local anesthetic nerve blocks to recently operated limbs. Conditions were basic, but it was impressive to witness what was possible under these conditions with a highly motivated and capable volunteer staff from all over the world.
I truly felt blessed to be part of this project with such an amazing bunch of folks! –Eric
