Global General

Chinese doctors offer helping hands in Haiti

By Chen Weihua and Huo Yongzhe (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-01-24 09:59
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Patrick DeHeer, a foot doctor from Indiana affiliated with Project Medishare, has been in Haiti 10 times. He has been taking care of the wounds and changing dressings for patients every day from 8:30am to 5:30pm and spent the night in a huge tent next door.

DeHeer, who has participated similar missions in Iraq, Honduras and Ukraine, said he is mostly worried that people offering help are coming here for just one or two months and then leave the Haitians by themselves.

There is only one place in Haiti that could offer artificial limb for amputated patients, he said, and that is far from enough.

He explained his frequent visit to Haiti as his efforts to share knowledge and teach someone. "I wish I could do it full time," he said.

Just meters from DeHeer, Ludner Confident, an aneathesian from St Peterburg, Florida, was walking into the tent with a supporter as his right leg was broken after falling from stairs a month ago. But he flew to Haiti a few days ago to offer his help.

Chinese doctors offer helping hands in Haiti
Dr Ludner Confident from Palm Beach, Florida, an anethetician who broke his leg a month ago, is also in a US hospital inside the Port-au-Prince airport to provide his service. [Photo/Chen Weihua] 

The 60-year-old doctor grew up in Haiti until he left for the US at the age of 25. "I wish I could be here forever (to offer help)," said Confident.

Apart from offering Haitians medical assistance, Confident also has a conceptual idea in his mind, to build a golf resort in a peninsula only one hour's drive from Port-au-Prince.

"It is going to help the Haitian economy," said Confident, adding that he hopes that some Chinese investors would be interested in his project.

The hospital scene at the tent hospital is like a huge emergency room where wounded Haitians lie on several lines of stretchers.

The scream of some children was heard from time to time when the pain of changing dressings was unbearable.

Every few minutes, patients were rushing in and out of the tent hospital.

A girl suffering life-threatening wound was taken care of by several doctors and nurses, who tried hard to save her life.

Josh Hyman, a pediatrician, was describing a child amputation case to an Israeli team medical officer, who agreed to take over the operation for the child.

Huang Jianfa of the CISAR said the lack of a complete logistics supply chain meant it's possible for the Chinese team to set up a hospital of its own.

"The US military is now in control of the logistics arrangement here and you also have to be part of the local healthcare system to get patients and send them to the right places," he said.

 

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