Bernard Mevs

On Friday morning, I got a ride over to Bernard Mevs to shadow my dad for a day. He was working as the only Med-Surg and ICU doctor for their nine bed Med-Surg unit and three bed ICU. The hospital is small compared to St. Damien and St. Luc, but many of the patients are very sick. The day was slow compared to the other days he was there, which was nice for us because it gave him a chance to really explain the cases to me, and we just had more time to chat. Since the two directors of the hospital are surgeons, they do a lot of post-op care. I've heard so much from our staff about why we almost never do surgeries, primarily because the risk of infection is so great in Haiti, that it made me nervous to see all these invasive surgeries. And sure enough, if there wasn't a problem with the surgery itself, the patients had some kind of complication and for many of them the prognosis didn't look good. I guess I got a very skewed view of the surgery though, because if things go well, the patients don't need to stay in the hospital. The other patients were very interesting from a medical standpoint-- a broken pelvis with external fixators (all bills covered by the UN, since it was a Minustah car that hit her), a 22 year old who needed a trach because of tetanus, and was subsequently found to be HIV+ and lost her pregnancy during her visit, and a suspected rabies case. It was great to be able to spend a day and a half looking at a hospital from a medical standpoint instead of a logistical one and helped remind me of why it's so important to make sure we have all the medicines and supplies that we need to treat our patients.

Bernard Mevs has started charging for their care, which impeded some of the medicine they were able to do. Having been in Haiti for three months, I know how much families struggle to pull together even the smallest amounts of money, and every time the translators would ask the families if they think they could get together $200 for a CT scan, I couldn't help but cringe. I have never been more thankful that St. Damien and St. Luc don't charge for care. A 10 year old boy who came to Bernard Mevs after being hit in the head by a car, was almost sent to St. Damien's just for the head CT because the family couldn't afford it at Bernard Mevs! The craziest part is that the CT scanner and the nice trailer it's in were all donated. It didn't cost Bernard Mevs anything! I know it's very hard to raise money for operational costs of the hospital, we struggle with the same thing, but there has to be a better solution than refusing diagnostic tests to patients who really need them.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant at the UN base. I put tried to put aside my contempt for Minustah and just enjoy a nice evening out. I was pretty successful, but I couldn't help bursting out laughing when I saw their "No sex for money or barter" sign. Ridiculous. The falafel I had was delicious and just to sit and talk with my dad and the other volunteers was really nice.

I got back on Saturday morning and relaxed for a little while, then went up to visit in oncology. I was tired from a busy day of new things and waking up early, so I was planning to just have a short visit and then go back home. But the kids wanted to play, so I ended up staying for a while. As I was leaving, I looked over to abandoned (it's right across the courtyard) and decided to go say a quick hello. When I got there, not only were there new babies (!!!!) but there was only one nurse for 12 babies, so there was a lot of work to do. By the time we got everyone in clean diapers, dinner came, so I helped feed the kids as well. Then there were other volunteers that came in and anyways, by the time I ended up leaving I'd been there for two hours. I was definitely tired by then, but I got to come home, take a shower, have a glass of wine and watch Modern Family with Bridget. All in all, it was a super busy, but rewarding day.