Haiti #5 - Hangin' With The Dragons

Dear Friends,

The original title of this diatribe was "Some days I am the bat, some days I am the ball." Which is still true. But in the last few weeks, as I have left the Logistics office to round on all of the nursing units, I have found myself saying, "I am going out to slay the dragons."
I was trying to slay one dragon an hour but that was a bit lofty. I now try to slay one dragon a day or at the very least, wrap them on the snout. Sometimes their tails hit me and some days we just coexist. Some seem to be smaller, some are cuter and some just sneer. And I am not sure who is winning.
This has been a hard few weeks. The grant money from the International Red Cross that funds Project Medishare, will be finished by Dec. 31st, but apparently the money will really be gone by Dec. 1st. Consequently, we layed off 20% of the staff on Sept. 30th. Doctors, nurses, translators, housekeeping. At one point I was so overwhelmed that I'd wished that I had been fired because I would have gladly left. Part of me still wants to.
Gaby, the Administrator and myself, sat and chose most of the people to be layed off, understanding that their income of $300/month was the only barrier to being homeless. Gaby was laid off one week later..
We met with all of the departments and told them about the layoffs and then the stories started. "Please, Madame, my husband and baby were killed in the earthquake, I will have no way to feed my children if I am let go." 'Please Madame, Please..."
We did not lay off the woman who told us this story.
Then one of the Haitian nurses was kidnapped for a day, luckily physically unharmed. And then the Lab spilled sulfuric acid at 11am one day but didn't say anything until 4pm even though they were coughing with watery eyes. The Lab was closed but no one thought to pull the wood off of the windows or put in a fan to ventilate the area.
During this time, Maxie, a young woman who I had taken care of in the Field Hospital was readmitted for Sickle Cell Crises. The family recognized me, greeting me with hugs, "we lost track of you." Because the Lab was closed, we had no idea how anemic she was. When we were finally able to get get some lab results, we sent the boyfriend to the Red Cross at the General Hospital, to get her a unit of blood. As the boyfriend was carrying in a unit of blood a couple of hours later, Maxie went into cardiac arrest and died. She was 22 yrs old and had just been accepted into Law School in New York. This was a totally preventable and needless death and I feel sick even thinking about it.
I thought that school started a month ago but I guess it started for everyone this past Monday. Uniforms needed to be made, black shoes and backpacks bought. Several of the hospital employees cannot afford all of this so a few of us sent money to the schools to pay the bills.
In that same vein, our hospital seems to be one of the few teaching hospitals left for nursing students so I now have 40 students divided into 6 hour shifts, doing their clinical rotations. And I have had to turn students away.
Two weeks ago, I noticed a little girl standing outside the inpatient HIV unit at the hospital. This is not a unit that we staff but it is right in the middle of the hospital so very visible. I smiled, she smiled and we became pals. Her mother was the only patient in the 5 bed unit so Milianne and her grandmother just moved into the unit with the mom.
I initially did not see the mom, only Milianne and her grandmother sleeping on the concrete floor of the unit. Milianne started to run to me and say "mange", she was hungry. So I adopted the 3 of them for a few weeks, giving them blankets, pillows, egg sandwiches from the street vendor, and clothes to Milianne who was half naked.
One day, Milianne pulled me into the room and their was her mom laying on the bed, only whispering "merci" to me. I felt like I was looking at the face of God and had to look away because it was so powerful.
Incredibly, the mother improved and the 3 of them left the hospital last week. And Milianne had new uniform skirts, black shoes and a backpack. Her smile was beautiful.
I am very tired so this is very brief. This is a very hard place.

Kathleen