Sarah Allen MS IV, Update from Haiti:

I feel like I run around all day. Either I’m trying to discharge post-partum patients home, running to the lab with fresh blood samples to make sure we get stat labs, trying to keep the blood pressure down on our pre-eclamptic patient, or our blood pressure up on our malaria patient, or simply translating between the american nurses and haitian nurses. Actually I shouldn’t say simply…it’s incredibly exhausting after awhile! I’m tired today. Yesterday I had the most awesome day. I guess each day just varies. Its quite the challenge to get the Americans to work alongside the Haitian nurses, when they don’t speak the same language. Talking with some of the nurses they were saying they feel really sidelined when all the americans are speaking in english etc. And I don’t blame them…it would be hard for me too if a large group of people came into my workplace and spoke in another language I didn’t understand, and tried to boss me around as if I didn’t know anything. So that’s one of our goals here, to teach the haitian staff to provide top quality care, and to be able to leave this whole thing in their hands when we leave. I hope we’re doing a good job of that, but its definitely not easy. It’s hard when we don’t even understand the system here, and as soon as we grasp on to how things work, another group rotates through, trying to run things a little differently. It’s definitely helpful that we’re here, we only have three ob/gyn doctors here and they take call it seems every night, so we’re for sure taking a load off them. But sometimes its frustrating.

We had a pre-eclamptic patient come in today. After watching what happened to the pre-eclamptic last week who abrupted and lost her baby, I was pretty nervous for this one. The nursing care here is sketchy, and sometimes vitals are taken merely once throughout the night….which can be dangerous, especially when her blood pressures were 220/160 this afternoon. We started her on Magnesium Sulfate, and gave her Hydralazine for the bp…it slowly came down but we were monitoring her very closely this afternoon. I’m somewhat concerned about what will happen during the night shift…

Anyway I’m having so much fun with these girls I’ve made friends with! They’ve been too kind to me…they keep bringing me gifts! Yesterday they brought me three, ripe, juicy mangos. I was in heaven! Today they brought me ice cream. And this evening they forced me to sit down, and braided my hair! It was so fun, my head hurts like crazy but its still fun They also keep trying to force other food on me. I try to refuse, but they get very mad when I refuse. I feel like I should be giving them stuff, not taking things from them. But they keep saying its the least they can do to thank me for my friendship. I don’t really feel like my friendship is that important, but it’s nice to know they appreciate it I guess.

I’m loving just hanging out with all of the people here. Looking back in life, one of the best things I ever did was learn french and spanish. It’s been soo useful! I spent a couple of hours this weekend hanging out with a large group of teenagers, just learning Creole. They get so excited when I put a new sentence together! Then during the whole evening, they ask me about California, and what it’s like to live there. They said they heard we have earthquakes too. They were surprised to find out that I’ve experienced multiple earthquakes, and that they don’t scare me. For them, this was their first earthquake ever. Many people had never heard of such a thing, and had no idea what was going on. They said a lot of people got scared and ran into their homes rather than out into the streets.

That evening as my friend Neerla was leaving, I asked her if she was going home. She looked at me and laughed! She was like, ‘Sarah, I don’t have a home! Remember?’ Oops. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to not have a home to go to in the evening. I’m even spoiled here, sleeping in a sleeping bag on a cot in a busy hallway. One of the nurses I’m working with was telling me how when it rains, she stands up all night, hiding under some sort of shelter, and gets no sleep. Then she has to come into work the next morning, without any sleep. And she, just like so many of the patients and other hospital staff, have no idea how long they’ll be without shelter.

But despite the sadness, most often at the end of the day I feel happy. And from what I can tell, so do they. I’m forever in awe of all of the people here, and I feel so thankful to have made so many beautiful friendships in such a short stay.