After survival: Agony and the Future

The following story hints at the scope of long-term injury and chronic pain that many Haitian survivors with amputated limbs will now have to cope with as one price of their remarkable survival.

As it stands, on the ground right now, there's a severe shortage of crutches and other equipment to help the newly amputated. Surgical teams lack the means to sterilize their equipment, leading to infection that they lack medicine to treat, leading to gangrene and death for some.

There's been no shortage of media stories covering the terrible agony of survivors who've had operations without any anaesthesia or pain killers of any kind.

A global call has gone out to the Handicap International and groups within the disabled/handicap communities and to the general public for support and donations. I'll be posting a list soon of top places to donate crutches, prosthetics and similar material that is urgently needed.

Similar calls have gone out to physical therapists and professionals, including trauma counselors (this is needed for everyone in Haiti, nearly). Again, when considering how to help, what services to introduce, remember the concept of Sharing Knowledge and Training. Haitians can do for Haitians, especially with partners, funding and training. Twinning projects are an ideal way to share the knowledge, and for groups outside Haiti to benefit from what survivors have to teach us now, too.

Bottom line: When Haiti is stable enough again to rebuild, there should be a global effort to offer work and support to these physically handicapped survivors who will be coping with additional huge odds. Business people and agencies contemplating how to help Haiti might consider factories for local production of prosthetics, crutches, wheelchairs, and other needed equipment - and then employ as many physically handicapped Haitians as possible.

Once they further recover, like all Haitians, they will need work. Work will be the key to their - and everyone else's - Haiti's - recovery. Before the quake, this was a huge, chronic challenge. Now, it's on a scale never imagined. But with disaster comes a sense of urgency that is present now, and can help lay the foundation for ecomic recovery.

And it must be a recovery that puts the needs of the most vulnerable in the population and puts them front and center. If Haiti can deliver for its newly handicapped, for its most traumatized, then it will be delivering for the rest of the country as well.

If that happens, the physically handicapped will be just that: disabled, but not unable to work, not weak -- recovered and strong. Quite capable of doing for themselves if given half a chance.

While we're on the subject, let's encourage everyone covering the Haiti quake story to avoid further stigmatizing survivors. Those who have had operations may be coping with a tremendous physical loss, with a disability even, but they remain as competent as another. Here's to the empowerment of physically handicapped Haitians. Let's give support to members of this community, and help and respect. Let's avoid pity. Let's recognize the strongest, the bravest people in the world at this moment.


WORK

Work. Amid rubble, miracles, agony, need for food, the enormous challenge now will be Work. Not only charity, or badly needed aid, but Work. A job. A means to do for yourself and your family.

Think about it, you reader: How are you, or your government or your agency or companies you work in able to help Haitians develop and find Work? One way is to buy from the local industries and companies. Another is twinning- sharing resources and training. There are a million ways. What's needed is what's in plentiful store right now: the desire to help. The will. And the the faith that Haitian can recover.

As I posted earlier, and will post again and again: are there any people stronger than Haitians? Perhaps others are as strong. But look how Haitians have survived this natural disaster, and done so with such remarkable displays of courage, order, generosity? Think about that when the earthquake has passed and you wonder if you might want to work or help work with Haitians or Haiti. Think about how strong the survivors have been, and how strong Haitians have always proved to be as workers. Think about that.

In the weeks ahead, I'll report on the FINANCIAL challenges, particularly for the average, now homeless, Haitian. There's a huge infrastructure to rebuild, including microfinance and community banks. As the conversation goes global, let's make sure Haitians and Haitian NGOs working closely in and at the community level are informing the dialogue, and that the big resources coming in -- sure to be parceled out to larger, better-resourced actors -- find their way, directly and transparently, to Haitians at the grassroots.

Meantime: to the governments, to Handicap International and other key aid agencies: we'll need a national Haitian database/list, created -- soon -- for the many survivors needing crutches or wheelchairs, and those bringing in donations of this vital equipment. Let's make sure what's donated reaches those in critical need.

(Note: I keep recognizing that we quickly need to start adapting the Craiglist model now, for all the goods and services needed, in order to allow a direct citizen exchange of these things. For now, there's the volunteer list at www.haitivolunteers.org. But it's past time for me to email Craig Newmark of Craigslist and see if his team would help with this rebuild-the-future social networking piece of the pie.

Our prayers, our healing thoughts to the survivors who have lost their limbs. We will not forget you tomorrow.

Injured survivors of Haiti quake face bleak future after losing limbs
Over 45 amputations carried out in three days
AP
Published: 00:00 January 20, 2010

Port-au-Prince: For two days, Ticia Vital refused doctors' pleas to allow them to amputate her festering left leg, even as the gangrene spread and the alternative became death.
However, after a sleepless night filled with pain, the 19-year-old agreed — becoming one of scores of Haitians who have lost their limbs to the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that has devastated millions.
In a country where life is difficult in the best of times, the prospect of a future without an arm or leg is especially dismaying.
"What will I do? How will I manage to survive on my own with just one leg?" Vital asked, lying lethargically on a metal bed frame at Renaissance Hospital, which Cuban doctors founded for eye care in 2006 and swiftly converted to a trauma unit after last Tuesday's quake.
Doctors in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince say they have performed numerous amputations of hands, arms and legs. An exact count is impossible to make as overworked medical staff race to care for tens of thousands of patients overflowing hospital wards into parks and gardens.
"We have had to perform dozens of amputations, including many double amputations," said Dr Diana Lardy of the International Medical Corps.
"The problem is people haven't gotten medical care soon enough, so wounds are very infected. Some of them are coming in with bones just sticking out from the rest of the leg."
While most injuries occurred when buildings collapsed, Lardy said she also is seeing patients with gashes and other injuries caused by amateur rescuers who frantically dug survivors from rubble with whatever tools they could find.
"We have dozens and dozens of patients waiting for surgery, including dozens of amputations, and people are still coming in," said Lardy.
Ward space is short. Some buildings at the Port-au-Prince General Hospital, including two operating rooms, suffered quake damage.

Sterility
Doctors performed 45 amputations at Renaissance in three days, said Dr Olga Maria Delgado of Havana. Most were done outside on a white-tiled counter under a tin roof in the hospital gardens. She said sterility was less of an issue than usual because most of the wounds already are infected.
As they passed, people held handkerchiefs to their noses against the stench of Vital's rotting leg. Flies buzzed around the sheet that covered her and settled on an exposed ankle bandage oozing puss.
Unfortunately, her worries about the future may not matter. With her leg cut above the knee, surgeon Dr Frank Diaz said Vital was severely infected and suffering scepticemia.
"She's not been responding well to all the antibiotics we're giving her. I think she has a 90 per cent chance of dying."


UAE relief
Red Crescent Society
Abu Dhabi: 02 641 9100
Drop off points: Marina Mall, Carrefour on Airport Road
Dubai: 04 261 4800

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