National Nurses United

Haiti_FNL 2/25/10 12:00 PM Page 28 "If you have a very sick patient and you can save their life, you share in their gratitude and it's an emotional experience for everybody. That's what makes it all worthwhile." —WILSON BOWERS , RN "In other neighborhoods they are getting more than they need; there are people selling some of the aid, they've got so much," Brewer said. "They haven't brought one grain of rice into Solino, because it's hard to get in there. It's right in the middle of town but it's a serious slum and it's neglected." Shortly after the quake, Brewer and a few nurse colleagues from the United States opened an impromptu clinic in Solino. He borrowed a small courtyard from a local preacher and shaded it with a plastic tarp. Several boys Brewer had helped –polite youths ages five to 15, dressed in clean clothes—rounded up benches and, miraculously, soda for the volunteers. Dozens of people lined up for treatment, most for minor injuries exacerbated by chronic conditions like malnutrition. Some were diagnosed and referred to larger hospitals, among them an elderly woman with a fractured back. Even amidst the suffering throughout Port au Prince, evidence of the Haitian people's resilience abounded. Women carried on with daily chores, washing clothes by hand in bowls on the side of the road. In camps across the city, the newly homeless marked the setting of the sun by singing, their voices raised not in the wailings of grief, but in hymns of harmony and optimism. Brewer attributed the lack of overt sadness on the streets to Haitians' belief in volunte bondye, or God's will. In a country where many hold strong religious convictions—both Catholic and voodoo—volunte bondye is used to explain everything from tragic death to changes in the weather. It's a way of coming to terms with life's blows, and persisting in spite of them. Of course, on many occasions throughout history, Haitians have not waited for God to fix their problems. In the early 1800s, Haitians fought and won perhaps the most famous slave revolt in history, gaining independence from France only to have their economy crushed by a U.S. trade embargo and debt repayment to their former colonial masters. The country was controlled by a brutal United States-backed dictatorship for much of the 20th century, then endured decades of violent regime changes and short-lived governments. In 2004, Haiti's democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted and the United Nations occupied the country. Aristide built public parks throughout Port au Prince, many of which went largely unused, Brewer said…until now. Today those parks provide homes for tens of thousands of people displaced by the earthquake. Brewer hoped the new situation would provoke sympathy among Haitians for the plight of street children, who have long been a scapegoat for the country's ills. "We are all street kids now," he said. 28 N AT I O N A L N U R S E F or some nurses, disasters are a calling. As a member of a United States Disaster Medical Assistance Team, Massachusetts RN Betty Sparks has tended to victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Ivan and Gustav—and even runners in the Boston Marathon. "I'm usually at the finish line there, and we sometimes call that a disaster—it's definitely a mass casualty incident," she said. When National Nurse caught up with Sparks by telephone, the operating room nurse was on a break from her 12-hour shift tending to surgical patients at a repurposed HIV clinic in Port au Prince. Helicopters flew overhead, and crackling from Sparks's radio interrupted the conversation. The only operating room nurse in the camp, Sparks had lost count of how many surgeries she'd performed that day, but thought it was around five—including one man who had been shot in the leg for money. "We've operated on him three times. He has a bullet behind the knee we have not gone after, and we're trying to get circulation into the leg so we can save it," said Sparks. "He says, 'Tell the American doctors, don't kill me, don't take my leg.'" Other patients had wounds that needed to be cut and drained. Doctors attached external fixation devices to fractured limbs—a temporary fix for an injury that in the United States would be treated by opening the limb and inserting plates and screws. When she wasn't working, Sparks was on call, and slept outdoors on a cot trimmed with mosquito netting, where she could be easily found when needed. Next to her bed, an oxygen machine hummed all night. She snacked on military meals-ready-to-eat and used headlamps to navigate the darkened camp at night. "Sometimes I get to take a shower and I take my scrubs off, put them on floor, rinse them out, hang them up and they're good for the next day," she said. "That's laundry." Sparks has also chaired the Massachusetts Nurses Association's emergency preparedness task force. Why does she like working in disaster zones? "I'm a very sick person," she laughed. "No, really it's just exciting doing the unknown and seeing what you can do with the skills you have. It's amazing how you can improvise. You're seeing things you haven't seen before and helping people that so need it." "These people had no healthcare whatsoever before," Sparks continued. "And now they're getting stuff they'd never get and unfortunately, when we leave, may never get again." Because Sparks originally trained as an ER nurse, this was her W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2010

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