MSV Foundation Haiti relief efforts recognized

22 March 2010

Reprinted with permission from The Winchester Star

By VAL VAN METER

Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — A long wait in an airport is aggravating.

But it pales in comparison to life in Port-au-Prince, where there’s no air conditioning, no restaurants, no seats.

When Dr. Ann Averill of Winchester volunteered for a two-week stint helping residents of the earthquake- ravaged Haitian country, the poorest in the western hemisphere, the trip included a three-hour wait at the airport in Port-au-Prince.

Averill sat on her duffle bag on the tarmac, the thermometer pushing 100 degrees, which only increased her admiration for the survivors of the earthquake, who have endured pain, suffering, and loss with amazing stoicism and calm.

The statistics are almost incomprehensible.

The number killed in the Jan. 12 magnitude 7 earthquake is estimated at over 230,000 by the Haitian government — over 150,000 in the capital of Port-au-Prince alone. Another 300,000 people were injured, many severely.

The government also estimates a quarter-million inhabitants lost their homes. And some 30,000 commercial buildings collapsed. That includes government buildings like the presidential palace, the National Assembly building, and the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping force.

Averill, an obstetrician/gynecologist who closed her own practice in Winchester last November, said the destruction is overwhelming.

At the Haitian capital’s port, “every pier . . . fell into the ocean,” she said. “There was nothing to dock to.”

Averill got a close look at the port while waiting for a boat to take her to the Navy’s hospital ship Comfort last month. Navy Seabees had built a pier in one day to help get supplies into the stricken country.

The Comfort arrived off Haiti’s coast on Jan. 20. Its mission was to treat injured people with care that could not be provided on shore. The Comfort carried a crew of about 850 people, including some 550 medical and support staff.

But even that wasn’t enough in the face of the devastation in Haiti. So the Navy put out a call for medical volunteers to help augment its efforts.

The Medical Society of Virginia Foundation got that call.

‘We have to do something’

“This was a very different activity for us,” said the Foundation Executive Director Beth Bortz.

The Foundation, which has about 14,000 physician members, aims to help doctors improve the health of their patients, Bortz said.

Each year, the Foundation presents service awards. Last year, the international service award went to a husband and wife team from the state’s eastern coast, Drs. John Kenerson and Lisbet Hanson, who, for years have been volunteering in Haiti.

Lisbet Hanson was in Haiti when the quake struck.

“She was able to communicate by Facebook,” Bortz said, and sent descriptions of what was happening to Bortz and others.

The picture she painted was “horrific,” Bortz said, and brought an instant response. “We have to do something.”

Bortz had been sending Hanson’s messages to the membership, and she began getting many calls with offers to go to Haiti.

The quake occurred on Tuesday, and by Friday, Bortz had a list of 200 physicians willing to help.

At first, she directed them to organizations that she knew worked in Haiti.

Soon, however, it was apparent those organizations were overwhelmed by the response. So the Foundation began making contacts and organizing volunteers itself.

“They needed teams with special skills,” Bortz said.

When the Navy called, Bortz was ready.

“It was really a great thing that so many physicians were willing to drop their lives and go,” she said.

About 72 hours was the most notice the Foundation could give, she added.

“I was running around like a chicken,” admitted Averill, who was told on a Thursday she would leave Sunday morning.

There were shots to get, and, in her case, a second pair of glasses.

“Everybody helped,” Averill said.

She joined 50 other physicians, of many different specialties, for the flight from Florida to Haiti, including several from Clarke County’s Project HOPE, she noted. They all joined the crew of the Comfort.

Long days

Living and working aboard the ship, which is as long as three football fields, was an experience, Averill said.

“If I never see another flight of stairs, that will be just fine,” she said. “You can’t go straight on any of the decks,” she explained.

It was several flights up from her bunk room, shared with seven other volunteers, to the mess hall, and flights of stairs up and down to the 12 operating rooms and many wards.

There wasn’t a great demand for her specialty, so she spent most of her time triaging incoming patients and assisting in the operating room. She called on her experience as a nurse. (Averill didn’t decide to become a doctor until she was 44.) “There were a lot of second surgeries,” she said, because in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, little medical care was available.

Averill spent a lot of her time cleaning and treating wounds that had only gotten only rudimentary care after the quake hit.

“Infections were a major problem because of the unsterile conditions” after the earthquake, said Averill. “There was no anesthetic. Nothing to numb the pain. It brings back memories of the Civil War,” she said.

For crush injures, amputation was the only option.

She told of one elderly woman who refused to have her infected arm amputated. Her husband had died in the quake, and she didn’t know if any of her children had survived. She feared she would have no one to help care of her if she was handicapped, Averill said.

That story had a happy ending. When the woman was transferred back to a tent hospital on shore, she found a neighbor who told her that some of her children had found shelter with others in their community. She would not be alone.

One child had both legs amputated, she added, but, with the resilience of the young, raced around the pediatric ward in a wheelchair.

The days were long, most averaged 18 hours.

“It was like doing a residency,” she said.

By the end of two weeks, “you’d sell your soul for a 20-minute shower or a tub bath,” she said. She didn’t spend much time on a morning shower, she explained, since two minutes was about all the water that was allotted.

Averill was very impressed with the many physicians who volunteered during her stint.

“The worst was over when I got there,” she said. The first two weeks the Comfort was in Haiti, the operating rooms functioned non-stop, she said.

Would she go back?

“I would,” she said immediately.

And, she said, Haiti will need continuing care.

The Medical Society of Virginia Foundation has a blog on its web site with information from members who have been in Haiti and details about their experiences.