Medical mission team cares for quake victims
For six days this month, photographer Joey Halvorson turned into a nursing assistant in Haiti.
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She became part of the 11-person Outreach Africa medical team, whose members are mostly from the Brainerd area, that returned last Friday from Haiti.
Sharon Kramer, a registered nurse from Baxter, created a cap using stretchy surgical material to help treat a Haitian girl who was suffering from scabies on her head.
They spent six days treating Haitian earthquake victims and other patients.
"It was fantastic," Halvorson said of the experience. "The part that really moved me was watching these guys work. To see them in action is really quite moving. To see them calm and loving. They are so patient."
The team didn't have much time to prepare for this quickly organized medical mission but most of them had many years of experience volunteering in makeshift medical clinics in Tanzania and Guatemala.
A medical team performed a hernia operation on a Haitian child. They included Sharon Manion (left), a Brainerd area surgical nurse; Dr. Perry Engstrom and Dr. Chuck Przymus, both from the Wahpeton, N.D., area; and Dr. Troy Duininck of Brainerd.
They left Feb. 2 for the Lifelong Christian Mission, which has a school and a small, under-equipped medical clinic in Grand Goave, a community about 40 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. About 90 percent of the buildings in the community were destroyed during the Jan. 12 earthquake and most of the residents of the town of about 70,000 people were camping in 54 established tent cities within a 10-mile radius.
The team included Sharon Kramer, Sharon Manion, Rosy Schanzenbach, Chris Rosinger and Donna Wahl, all registered nurses; Sue Hadland, nurse practitioner; Chuck Przymus, a nurse anesthetist; and medical doctors Dr. Paul Milloy, Dr. Troy Duininck and Dr. Perry Engstrom; and Halvorson. Wahl, Engstrom and Przymus are from the Wahpeton, N.D., area while the rest of the team is from the Brainerd area.
In just one week, the team received nearly $15,000 in donations to purchase medication, medical supplies and surgical equipment for the trip. They paid their own travel expenses. St. Joseph's Medical Center was the team's largest contributor and team members said many people in the community were incredibly generous. Forestview Middle School students donated more than $1,000 for the trip from their Hats for Haiti fundraiser, said Sue Hadland, who plans to soon give a presentation for students about the mission and their work there.
Brainerd area nurses Sharon Manion (left) and Chris Rosinger cared for a newborn infant immediately after the baby was delivered via emergency cesarean section at a medical clinic in Grand Goave, Haiti, the first day the medical team was there. The mother and the entire medical team were surprised to discover the woman was pregnant with twin girls. Both babies survived, as did the mother. It was the first time a C-section had been performed at this mission's medical clinic.
Halvorson said she simply sent a mass e-mail to friends explaining that she was going to go on this medical mission and that she wouldn't be around for a while, not asking for donations, and several people sent her checks or stopped her with donations for the trip.
This was Halvorson's first mission trip and it was an incredible experience for her. While there, she decided to sponsor a 2-month-old Haitian baby boy named Michael Joseph through sixth grade, providing him through the mission with financial support for meals and schooling.
The medical team performed a lot of follow-up care for wounds and amputations as a result of the earthquake. They also treated patients who hadn't seen any doctors since they were injured in the quake three weeks earlier, like a 7-year-old girl who had a fractured femur. Duininck performed a finger amputation after a Haitian construction worker smashed and damaged his finger while working near the mission. Duininck said the team treated a lot of burns, as well as routine medical conditions and many cases of malaria.
"Our mission was really to go and do what we could," said Duininck. "We did what we could, and got by with what we had."
A young Haitian girl prepared a Kids Against Hunger meal in the tent city at Grand Goave, Haiti. The medical team that recently traveled to this community is hosting a Kids Against Hunger food packaging opportunity on May 8 at Forestview Middle School in Baxter to package 100,000 emergency food packages, which feed eight people per package. Half of the packages will be sent to Haiti while the other half will be sent to Tanzania.
On the first day, the team had a pregnant woman suffering from seizures as a result of preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition for mother and child. The team decided to perform an emergency cesarean section, the first one ever done at the mission in its 30 years.
Surprising to both the mother and the medical team, the woman was pregnant with twin girls. One of the babies had difficulty breathing but fortunately both babies and the mother survived, they said. The team delivered a total of four babies while there for six days.
All patients who needed more advanced care with their quake-related injuries were sent with U.S. Navy and Marine medical teams to the USS Bataan or the hospital ship USNS Comfort, stationed off shore. The medical team worked closely with both Marine and Navy medical personnel. When the team used its only sterilized tray of surgical tools that it brought for the trip and were unable to sterilize the equipment because the mission medical clinic's two sterilizers were broken, a group of Navy sailors offered to take the equipment back to the ship and sterilize it for the team.
Manion said it was particularly touching when a Navy medic asked the team for a "wish list" of items they would like to treat patients. He would see what he could do. The team was pleasantly surprised when they were delivered a sterilized tray with additional surgical equipment and everything on their list in a large backpack.
A note on top of the tray read, "With faith, anything is possible."
"I thought that was so beautiful," said Manion.
Rosinger said she noticed many patients seemed to be emotionally traumatized by the earthquake and the devastation it took on their lives. This manifested itself into physical ailments; many people complained of stomach aches and headaches, as well as overall body aches.
"The women were busy taking care of children but I think we saw young men looking very sad and depressed," said Hadland.
The team felt several small tremors while they were there and could hear a murmur of concern coming from Haitians living in a nearby tent city when this would occur.
"That was very telling to me, on how nervous and anxious they are," said Rosinger.
While the team feels good knowing they helped many people, they said Haiti is going to need much more help to get through this devastation and rebuild.
"It was a few drops in the bucket," Hadland said of their medical help in Haiti. "But if everybody gives a few drops, you'll fill the bucket."
The team had $2,500 in donations leftover - they could only bring three 50-pound bags of medical supplies each with them - and they donated that to the mission to expand and build an operating room at the medical clinic.
Team members said Thursday that they are grateful to those in the community who donated money for the medical supplies and equipment.
"The community came forward and had trust and faith in us, and that was pretty remarkable," said Kramer.
Several team members said they would be willing to return to Haiti for a medical mission but for now they're planning a medical mission to Tanzania for March 2011.
The team members also are planning to conduct a Kids Against Hunger food packaging event on May 8 at Forestview Middle School in Baxter. The food packages contain a meal, when mixed with water, will feed eight people in an emergency. The cost to package and ship the food is 25 cents per package. Their goal is to have community members sponsor and fill 100,000 packages with half of them to be sent to Haiti and the other half to Tanzania. They ask for $25 per volunteer to help at the event, which will pay for 100 meals. Last year the team had more than 400 people who donated and packed 50,000 meal packets for Tanzania. For more information about this event, e-mail lakedoc1@yahoo.com.
JODIE TWEED may be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.