Giuseppe
Emeritus
Ministry of Touch -- Reflections on Disaster Work after the Haitian Earthquake (N Engl J Med., extract, edited)
Published at www.nejm.org
March 3, 2010 (10.1056/NEJMp1002311)
Ministry of Touch ? Reflections on Disaster Work after the Haitian Earthquake
Annekathryn Goodman, M.D.
After the January 12 earthquake, I traveled with a national disaster team from the Department of Health and Human Services to Haiti, where we set up a mobile tent hospital on the sites of a devastated school and a nearby adolescent clinic. My 2-week deployment was marked by sensory overload. There was the hot sun, the humidity, and the swirling mosquitoes. The air was full of dust and smoke from burning bodies and burning tires. The smell of diesel fuel from our generator was mixed with those of decomposition, garbage, and unwashed bodies. The sound of women and children weeping in sorrow and pain joined the noise of roosters crowing from 4 in the morning until noon, the drone of the generator, and the throb of rescue helicopters. But at dusk, voices of the earthquake survivors rose in gospel song from the tent city next to our camp and seemed to weave a tapestry of solace.
Despite the horror of unburied dead, crushed homes, and twisted streets, Port-au-Prince burst forth with color. Women and children wore beautiful bright pink and purple dresses and ribbons in their hair. In the schoolyard where we worked, a mango tree displayed one stubborn, bright red flower.
Patients soon filled our two tents, dressing station, and surgical unit. They lay on canvas cots, 10 to 14 to a tent, their bodies mapping out the stories of their agonies. I walk among them. Guillame, at age 18, is in early labor. She is living in the tent city out on the soccer field, in a tent with six other people. Stella and her newly delivered baby, Samson, sleep quietly face to face. They will return to the sidewalk where she was living. Christi, age 13, lies with a leg wound. S?v?re, age 58, has a right humerus fracture and left leg wound. Stephanie, 28 years old and 25 weeks pregnant, comes in with abdominal pain and an open, draining leg laceration. She is living with her father, mother, sister, and brother out in the open in a park. She ate one bowl of rice 24 hours ago. Next to her lies a nameless woman who has just had her leg amputated. She is in pain, and she starts to sing a song of suffering.
(...)
[Free Full Text is available at NEJM.org website, following the link below...]
<cite cite="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp1002311?query=TOC">NEJM -- Ministry of Touch -- Reflections on Disaster Work after the Haitian Earthquake</cite>March 3, 2010 (10.1056/NEJMp1002311)
Ministry of Touch ? Reflections on Disaster Work after the Haitian Earthquake
Annekathryn Goodman, M.D.
After the January 12 earthquake, I traveled with a national disaster team from the Department of Health and Human Services to Haiti, where we set up a mobile tent hospital on the sites of a devastated school and a nearby adolescent clinic. My 2-week deployment was marked by sensory overload. There was the hot sun, the humidity, and the swirling mosquitoes. The air was full of dust and smoke from burning bodies and burning tires. The smell of diesel fuel from our generator was mixed with those of decomposition, garbage, and unwashed bodies. The sound of women and children weeping in sorrow and pain joined the noise of roosters crowing from 4 in the morning until noon, the drone of the generator, and the throb of rescue helicopters. But at dusk, voices of the earthquake survivors rose in gospel song from the tent city next to our camp and seemed to weave a tapestry of solace.
Despite the horror of unburied dead, crushed homes, and twisted streets, Port-au-Prince burst forth with color. Women and children wore beautiful bright pink and purple dresses and ribbons in their hair. In the schoolyard where we worked, a mango tree displayed one stubborn, bright red flower.
Patients soon filled our two tents, dressing station, and surgical unit. They lay on canvas cots, 10 to 14 to a tent, their bodies mapping out the stories of their agonies. I walk among them. Guillame, at age 18, is in early labor. She is living in the tent city out on the soccer field, in a tent with six other people. Stella and her newly delivered baby, Samson, sleep quietly face to face. They will return to the sidewalk where she was living. Christi, age 13, lies with a leg wound. S?v?re, age 58, has a right humerus fracture and left leg wound. Stephanie, 28 years old and 25 weeks pregnant, comes in with abdominal pain and an open, draining leg laceration. She is living with her father, mother, sister, and brother out in the open in a park. She ate one bowl of rice 24 hours ago. Next to her lies a nameless woman who has just had her leg amputated. She is in pain, and she starts to sing a song of suffering.
(...)
[Free Full Text is available at NEJM.org website, following the link below...]