Additional Saturday Update

• Team continues to work hand in hand with Team Rubicon (which has grown to more than 20 members)
• L'Arche Haiti has 11 buildings on 3 properties, 10 of the buildings have been condemned
• All 40 of L'Arche's community members are living outdoors - no electricity, only mattresses, but they do have a well. Wayne and Rey set up a sleeping area for them in a banana grove using 40 x 20' tarps
• The team is going where other larger teams are not, this has really been appreciated and become their niche
• Colleen ran a pharmacy today out of a tap tap (local vehicle), helping a team of 10 medics
• Sheila administered wound care
• Pat assessed medical needs at L'Arche
• Alex continues to serve as team communicator, and edit video from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
  
• BBC News reported that between 80-90% of the homes in Carrefour are damaged, and 400,000 people will be moved into tent cities around Port au Prince
• Today team members have reported feeling fulfilled, well used, and so glad to be helping the Haitians.
• Wayne's informative phone call got cut short as he was parked on the tarmac at the airport picking up medical supplies...it's a funny world!
• The team continues to sleep in tents at the Jesuit seminary, but enjoy the morning and evening debriefs with Team Rubicon
  

Saturday Update from Port Au Prince

Today the team became part of three different teams as the group of relief workers at the Jesuit seminary continues to grow. Pat, Wayne and Rey went to Carrefour to deliver supplies to the L'Arche community there and to see if there were any gaps in medical care. The community, while very damaged, is in good shape. MSF has responded with medical care, the markets are thriving and the major roads are clear of debris. The team had a good visit at L'Arche.

Colleen and Sheila were each on different mobile medical teams in Port au Prince. They set up mobile clinics in three different IDP camps. Each camp is different. Colleen's team treated illness along with ongoing wound care, Sheila's team was dealt primarily with fractures,
infections and wounds. Both Colleen and Sheila are quickly earning their PA (Physician's Assistant) qualifications!

Buildings are still collapsing. It's hard to watch as people struggle to rescue loved ones from the rubble.

Where have the videos gone?

The team videos are currently being re-edited into a more detailed picture of this complex relief effort. Thank you for your support and comments

Responding to news on the ground: L'arche Haiti

Last night L'arche Haiti contacted us to let us know that their community of 40 in Haiti, has had to move outside with out any tents or tarps for shelter.

L'arche communities specialize in creating communities specifically including intellectually challenged and disabled adults these members require a high level support and care, and make up the majority of the L'arche Haiti community.

We have been requested to help and supply much needed food, water and medication for these members, particularly those requiring medication for their intellectual disabilities. As well as setting up tents and shelters for the coming weeks.

L'arche Haiti is situated in Carrefour with one of the only building not to collapse in the quake in the surrounding community. But with the aftershocks returning is still unsafe.

The Team plans to arrive at L'arche Haiti tomorrow.

L'arche Haiti Website

http://larchehaiti.org/

L'arche Haiti blog:

http://www.larche.ca/reporters/jonathan/mwen_pa_fou/en

Photos of L'arche Haiti here:

http://www.larche.ca/en/images_of_larche/photoessays/larche_haiti

Wednesday and Thursday

Just got into Santo Domingo after a 8 hour drive.

Wedenesday 6 am - I awoke thinking that someone shaking the car I was sleeping in. It was a large 15 second tremor. There were yells, "get out of the house" and screams of fear. The 100 Haitians in tents were up and out. I was filled with memories of the earthquake 11 years ago in Colombia.

To be more effective we joined agreat medical team that cam in 3 days earlier. Great group that were thankful for our help and our SUV. We wondered how we could help but it worked out well.

We drove through the rubble of the city to the Main Hospital taht was still standing. Because all of the patients had been moved out of the hospital in fear, everything was outside. The sun was hot and we could not go inside until 2:30 pm

I led the team setting up the tarps for a shelter 40 X 30 feet, using scrounged rope, boards and and tarps. We set it up on a sidewalk as the triage ward for new incoming patients. The doctors started working. One was delivering a baby, another setting bones, others cleaning wounds....

I also carried a corpse on a door to the morgue with one of the fireman. That was hard as we had to cross over 100 yards of slimy road way.We figured it was from body fluids. We later heard over 900 had been piled there.. We also saw maybe 20 in varying states of decay, and causes of death. I hope I don't have nightmares about it.

It was 35 by midmorning. I had to sit down with heat exhaustion - many of us had troubles with that, but I drank over 15 bottles of water, many with oral rehydration crystals. I feel great now.

A doctor asked me to drive back to the Jesuit compound with him. We ran out of IV, pediatric medicines etc. We got them and raced back. We had to drive through the city and saw at least 3 tent cities of 1000+ tents, tarps, or sheets housing families.

At 6pm I went on a 1.5 hour search for gasoline with our interpreter. The city is totally dark. There are no lights except the occasional garbage fire. Where someone had a generator and a light there were great crowds o people. In some neighbourhoods, they have closed of roads and everyone sleeps on the street. My heart boke for these men and wonen and their kids.

Our interpreter is a gem. His wife runs a small used clothing business. When their house collapsed she lost all her inventory and savings. They were safe but devastated....

Pat was in her element in triage and the emergency room. Fixing broken femurs with Colleen, cleaning wound, prepping patients for surgery, doing infusions etc.

Sheila ran the Pharmacy and was also in her element. She immediately got involved organizing the pharmacy at the hospital, then distributing meds and IVs, then help ing doctors.

Colleen was helping everyone, doing errands, delivering supplies, helping with tarps.holding patients while Pat fixed femurs.

Alex is doing well. It was hard for him as he saw the journalists and videographers - lots of them looking for the worst cases. Jesse Jackson Anderson Cooper and lots of others. Sticking their cameras almost down patients throats they were so close. It was embarrassing. He will have more to say about that later. We have worked out well.

By the end of the day the hospital was full of every agency under the sun. they no longer needed our help.

Thursday the team was going to go to new untouched neighbourhoods where no one had helped.

When we got back to the Jesuit facility 4 big rigs were being unloaded including the one this team funded. 40 feet of protein - cheese and sausage. Wow. Its being delivered as we speak. Thanks donors.

Thursday morning we leave by 7 to get to Santo Domingo, to pick up Rey and get some desparately needed supplies, plus get medicine for the L'Arche community in Carrefour. We will go there Saturday with supplies. Pat, Colleen and Sheila are staying behind in the very good care of this team and the Jesuit priest will be watching out for them.

We are now in Santo Domingo. It took 1.5 hours to get across the border. Thousands are trying to cross the border.

Pick up Rey, supplies and then back....

Team Pat is working with

blog.teamrubiconhaiti.org

This is a link to the blog of the team that Pat will be working with this week.

The Jesuits are Amazing! (writing from Port au Prince)

We're in Port au Prince in a Jesuit seminary backyard with 100 others serving here. They set up a satellite wireless connection for communication, thinking of our communications needs.

We are amidst Haitians, Dominicans, Spaniards, Americans, Canadians and others at an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in the backyard of the Jesuit seminary. In the midst of all of this we have hi-speed internet!

Our drive in began early and was 9 1/2 hours long due to being lost (temporarily confused - so the guys term it). We stopped in Jimani along the border and stopped in at a Claretans parish and Parroquial Centre that has been turned into a children's orthopaedic clinic where we saw 23 children with different injuries including broken bones, fractures, amputations, etc. After this we were quickly told that we had to catch a 40 truck convoy of trucks to take us into Port au Prince.

It was a slow drive in as there were many trucks heading into the city. As we got closer to PAP we could see the destruction, collapsed buildings and people wandering around. Many people were carrying luggage with the few belongings they had left.

We're sleeping in tents and eating food we brought in. We are constantly hearing outgoing planes overhead as we are at the end of the runway.

A team of 12 men just came in - paramedics, doctors, fireman and a history teacher. Most are former army. They are led by the Jesuit history teacher. Today they did more than 200 operations including compound fractures, amputations below the knee, above the knee, arms, hands etc. Pat joins their team in the morning through next Tuesday.

They can only operate until 5:30 pm when the light ends as there is no power. Then they collapse with exhaustion, sleep and go out the next morning.

Later tonight the rest of us will find out we are doing.

Thanks for your prayers.