Sinai Team Returns From Haiti

Yesterday marked the six-month anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. As you can read here and here, there is still much work to be done in recovery efforts, as 1.6 million Haitian citizens are homeless and a minuscule amount of the promised aid has been delivered.

Many Haitian citizens need medical care. That's why a health care team from Sinai Hospital, led by Drs. John Herzenberg and Aaron Zuckerberg, returned last month to Hopital Adventiste d'Haiti in Port au Prince. The focus of the trip was to provide reconstructive orthopedic surgery to the earthquake victims, as well as general support to HAH. The team members include three orthopedic surgeons, one podiatrist, one anesthesiologist, one family practitioner, five nurses, one physical therapist, one surgical instrument technician, and three volunteers. In the course of under a week, the team performed 54 surgeries.

"We were all very touched by this,” Dr. Zuckerberg told the Jewish Times. “We were all crying when we left. We all want to go back. The question isn’t if, it’s when.”

You can read more by visiting the Team Sinai blog or the Haiti bones blog.

Team Sinai Heads to Haiti

As a sign of their commitment in providing medicine for those who are less fortunate, LifeBridge Health has several employees who regularly go on medical missions. This week, a team of volunteers from Sinai Hospital head to Haiti, many for the second time since the January earthquake.

The 18-member team will be providing support to the Hopital Adventiste d'Haiti (Haiti Adventist Hospital - "HAH") in Carrefour, Port au Prince. The focus is to provide reconstructive orthopedic surgery to the earthquake victims, as well as general support to HAH. The team members include three orthopedic surgeons, one podiatrist, one anesthesiologist, one family practitioner, five nurses, one physical therapist, one surgical instrument technician, and three volunteers.

In preparation for their coworkers' trip, Sinai employees joined forces to help collect supplies. In the last week of May, the employees gathered band-aids, protein bars and flip-flops. As you can see from these pictures, hundreds of flip-flops were donated. They will be handed out to patients at HAH, allowing many to no longer be barefoot. Help also arrived from Practice Dynamics employees, who started their own flip-flop drive for the trip.

"Dr. Herzenberg and I were very humbled by the response from employees," says Aaron Zuckerberg, the head of the Pediatric Intensive Care and Critical Care Unit at the Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai.

You can learn more about the Team Sinai members and see progress on their trip by clicking here.

My Experience in Haiti

by Heather Kline, P.A. - C, MMS
Sinai Hospital Department of Orthopedic Surgery

After I heard about the Haiti earthquake on January 12, I felt compelled to do whatever I could to help people there. I knew going in what needed to be done, but never realized the full impact of disaster relief, or how it would affect me.

I went down to Haiti with a group called Project Medishare. It is sponsored by the University of Miami and has done medical missions to Haiti since 1994.

We arrived on midnight, February 3. We stepped onto the tarmac and I was immediately met with U.S. Army soldiers with M-16s. At this point I'm thinking "what did I just get myself into?"

The airport was nothing but a broken-down abandoned building in the middle of the airfield. We quickly realized that we had to unload the plane of all the bags because we were the only people.

Once we arrived at the camp, it was mainly composed of four large tents. There was an adult tent, a pediatric tent with operating room (pictured at right), a sleeping tent for staff, and a big supply tent. A pediatric patient is pictured above left.

Overall, the camp was well equipped with supplies and equipment. We had several X-ray machines, central sterile, pharmacy, outpatient wound clinic, a functioning operating room, showers and porta-potties. The main problem we found was lack of organization, which was mainly due to the lack of staff.

While in Haiti, I worked most of the time in the operating room, scrubbing into cases and running the operating room board. I was fortunate enough to work with some of the best people I have ever met. We had a staff of about 75 people from all areas of the country; and it was the way health care should be, with no divisions and everyone working together to do what was right for the patient. It was health care in its truest form. We were able to complete many surgeries, including amputations, fracture care, skin grafting, debridement of wounds, external fixation and emergent injuries.

One of the best experiences of my trip came when they brought a young man into our ICU/OR. He had survived for three weeks under the rubble. He was walking to the market when the quake hit and was able to live by eating the groceries that he was carrying. The last several days he was under the rubble, barely alive, he said a “woman in a white gown brought him water and food” until they were able to dig him out. Despite his mental anguish, he was so appreciative and offered to pray for us. He truly is a remarkable man. I was also able to make a cot every night for his mother and told her she would never have to wake up without her son again.

I am truly blessed to have had the opportunity to help the Haitian community. I plan to go back during the summer, with several of the same staff. It is difficult to comprehend how truly fortunate we are until we visit Third World countries. On the left is a picture of people waiting in a long line to get rice following the earthquake.

We are lucky to born into one of the greatest countries in the world. We should be grateful and give to those who are less fortunate. Now is the time to get involved.

Orthopedic Surgeon Reflects on Haiti Experience

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, several LifeBridge Health employees have volunteered their time and services to earthquake victims. Among these are physicians Shawn Standard and Albert Aboulafia.

An orthopedic surgeon and co-director of sarcoma services at the Alvin & Lois Lapidus Cancer Institute, Aboulafia traveled to Haiti from Feb. 3-7 to work with Project Medishare. Before he left, fellow orthopedic surgeon John Herzenberg sent over 50 pounds of donations that included soap and blankets.

An estimated 300,000 Haitians were injured in the 7.0 earthquake. Once Aboulafia arrived, there were roughly 140 adults and 65 children and adolescents in the Medishare tents who were awaiting treatment.

He worked at a breakneck pace, estimating that he performed 50 operations over a two-day period, including wound care, skin grafts, amputations and fracture realignments. When a severe wound is left untreated, infection can develop, leaving no choice but to amputate.

“I think we did a lot of good,” he says. “There, you could really make an impact. Would I fix a fracture different in Baltimore? Yes. But there were no lab tests, no blood. We did the best possible care that we could under the circumstances.”

One patient who sticks in his mind is a 90-year-old woman with a femur fracture.

“She understood the risks of surgery, and we were able to help her,” he says. “She had a place to go home to, and we were able to get her thigh fixed, put her into a wheelchair, and send her with relatives to go home.”

Aboulafia said he was lucky to have physical therapists, nurses, physician assistants, and volunteers who were dedicated to helping treat patients.

“Lots of times it was the people who were very much out of their element who excelled,” he says. “It was a tense and emotional time, but you saw a lot of people who were at their best.”

He hopes to return soon. To learn more about Project Medishare, click here.