{"id":216936,"date":"2010-01-23T16:21:07","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T21:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/childrenshospitalblog.org\/?p=4553"},"modified":"2010-01-23T16:21:07","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T21:21:07","slug":"haiti-nurse-nelson-aquino-updates-us-on-day-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/216936","title":{"rendered":"Haiti: Nurse Nelson Aquino updates us on day three"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Hi everyone!<\/p>\n

\n\t\"Nurse<\/p>\n

Nurse Nelson Aquino cares for patients in the makeshift Post-Anesthesia Care Unit in Haiti.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After a couple of nights, our group figured out the dynamics of how\u00a0to get OR time, so we took the first bus in to the hospital.<\/p>\n

When we arrived, we jumped into action to find out what our\u00a0plan was today. Stella took charge and got our team going minus John (Meara)<\/a> and\u00a0Craig (McClain)<\/a>. In the meantime, the military commander was looking for the\u00a0baby we took care of last night. So we all searched and searched\u00a0and later found out the guys brought him to another DMAT unit. I\u00a0also learned that unit was headed by Dr. Mooney<\/a> and FEMA<\/a>. The baby is alive stable and was handed off to\u00a0Dr. Mooney and mom is good.<\/span>In the morning, Gary (Rogers)<\/a> and the ortho guys did some rounds to gather patients for the night OR. Some of us did pain management and sedation for the many wound and\u00a0amputee dressings. Jay , Lisa and Terri did awesome putting IVs and\u00a0helping the Mt. Sinai and Dartmouth Hitchcock team.<\/p>\n

The OR group gathered furniture and equipment to make a new OR.\u00a0Stella , Pam, Trish and Joann were working to make the OR night\u00a0happen. Joann has been so vital translating and making sure all the\u00a0locals are in tune with our plan.<\/p>\n

We headed home to camp at 2 pm and rested till the night shift\u00a0started by 7 pm. At camp, more teams started to arrive. We noticed a\u00a0pattern of uncertainty and being lost, just like we felt when we\u00a0came. As the first group to arrive at camp, we all helped to make\u00a0their transition smooth.<\/p>\n

At night, we had many drop-offs, meaning military men would walk up with patients and say, \u201cHere you go.\u201d Some were lucky to get some\u00a0triage, some a bed, some went directly to the OR and some were not so lucky.\u00a0The people are desperate for any kind of help. You will be working\u00a0and 10 people are pulling you in any direction and you can\u2019t\u00a0understand them. The tents need nurses so bad, to give meds, pain\u00a0meds, antibiotics, dressings and basic care. You will be lucky to\u00a0have a local Haitian nurse, but last night it was me, Jay and Teri\u00a0manning five tents (over 100 patients) and a post op area. There were a few\u00a0doctors there helping and we had the director\/ founder of PIH\u00a0Paul Farmer<\/a> helping us.<\/p>\n

Some of the things we saw were a young man who had a wall fall on him\u00a0last week. Tonight he arrived from the Israeli hospital with family\u00a0and looking for intensive care and hope to get on the Comfort\u00a0Ship. But now it is too late to transport so we did the best we could.\u00a0I put my pulse ox on and it was 48 and he was in respiratory distress, pain,\u00a0borderline obtunded. Dr. Meara and Dr Farmer managed to assess and\u00a0determine this was not surgical. We administered antibiotics, morphine and\u00a0heparin for him and watched him overnight.<\/p>\n

Thank goodness we met and befriended this team of FDNY paramedics, doctors and physician assistants who mended all the patients at night.\u00a0They willingly found beds and accepted our postops late at night.\u00a0These guys were amazing!<\/p>\n

Last night, we did 5 surgeries too. One triage trauma, mva, ortho trauma and a massive orbital degloving. The teams were busy till 11 pm\u00a0when we stopped surgeries. Jay and I bonded with a father who son\u00a0needed septum surgery. He spoke English and told us he had lost his entire\u00a0family. It was just him and his boy. He said his boy was a \u201cdiamond,\u201d\u00a0the most valuable thing he has now. Despite his losses, the father\u00a0was there helping other families and I saw him later unloading a\u00a0warehouse for the paramedics. That is pure humanity to see in these\u00a0conditions.<\/p>\n

I cant even describe the hundreds of other patients we\u2019ve seen or the experience in the OR, but I hope this gives you all a tiny glimpse\u00a0that we are making a difference!!!<\/p>\n

Thank you all!
\nNelson<\/p>\n

\t\"email\"<\/a>
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone! Nurse Nelson Aquino cares for patients in the makeshift Post-Anesthesia Care Unit in Haiti. After a couple of nights, our group figured out the dynamics of how\u00a0to get OR time, so we took the first bus in to the hospital. When we arrived, we jumped into action to find out what our\u00a0plan was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":480,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}