A Pittsburgh doctor is treating patients, including performing multiple amputations, at a refugee camp that has sprung up around a nursing school in Leogane, about 35 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince.
Dr. Chip Lambert, an emergency medicine physician from West Penn Allegheny, met a plane packed with medical supplies from Pittsburgh and a medical team last. Dr. Lambert came to Haiti last week on the rescue mission that included Gov. Ed Rendell.
Dr. Lambert, a veteran disaster management physician, traveled by humvee from the airport last night to the FSIL School of Nursing, in a group of 12 physicians and 15 nurses.
Dr. Lambert, who also is volunteer medical director for Pittsburgh-based relief organization Brother's Brother, said they are now treating about 140 people a day. He said people in the community flocked to the site right after the earthquake because they knew it was a medical facility -- although it has no beds and is not a hospital. The earthquake was at 5 a.m., Dr. Lambert said, the first patient showed up at 5:20 a.m. They are now treating patients on stretchers and in tents near the facility, which is close to the epicenter of the Jan. 11 quake.
He spoke shortly after noon, saying they were trying to get a Navy helicopter to pick up a 10-day-old infant near death.
People in the community are bringing injured people in, he said, many with broken limbs.
"They can't walk, obviously, and there are no cars. People are showing up in trucks with injured."
Unfortunately the patients have often developed infections and doctors can't save the limbs.
"We're taking off a lot of legs, a lot of arms," he said.
Operating conditions are better now than they had been as a result of the medical equipment and medications the group brought along, he said.
They are also treating those with illnesses not associated with the earthquake, but those cases have been complicated by lack of equipment and supplies. On Saturday night, eight doctors worked frantically on a 19-year-old suffering a diabetes-related crisis.
"We knew exactly what was wrong with her, but there was not a damn thing you can do about it," he said. The young woman died.
The relief workers are set up in a building where they've been doing some research work for Centers for Disease Control. There is a satellite hookup there so they can communicate.
Dr. Lambert said a couple of American doctors went home last night, and more doctors and nurses will be leaving. But others are arriving from other countries, he said.
"Some Germans showed up today, and we'll put them to work."
There are a number of mobile clinics in the area treating sick and wounded people.
The hospital, which sits on about 20 acres, is surrounded by a chain-link fence. The camp grew up as people fetched pieces of tin from roofs, sticks, bits of cloth, and erected shelters, Dr. Lambert said.
People are cooking outside their makeshift homes, kids are running around playing, and people are bringing what possessions they've recovered, he said.
A few small planes with supplies have landed.
"There's a small landing strip -- well, it's not a really a landing strip. They park on car at each end of the road while the plane circles, and the plane lands between them," he said.
He confirmed the devestation of the infrastructure.
"The water mains are broken. Sewage lines are broken. If you go through many streets you get a nice putrid smell."
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