Haiti_FNL 2/25/10 11:59 AM Page 24
In the tents around Williams lay patients with amputated limbs
and crushed pelvises. She saw people that were malnourished, and
others with pressure ulcers from staying in one position for a long
time waiting to be rescued.
"The thing that worries you is the aftercare—how much do they
understand the instructions you give them? They're not getting
enough pain medication. You have a 19-year-old with no arm and
he's screaming and what do you tell him?"
Because patients' families had lost their homes, Williams said,
they would move into the hospital. "You have a patient lying on the
bed, and their grandma or sister is just there under the bed, because
there's nowhere for them to go," she said. "You can't tell them, please
leave. That is what hits you hard."
It was easy for patients to get lost in the sea of tents. If a patient
went to another area of the camp for an X-ray, a nurse would affix
the number of their tent to their clothing so that staff would know
where to send them when they were done.
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N AT I O N A L N U R S E
Tending to patients under such
conditions "was like community nursing, psych nursing, and medical-surgical nursing in one," said Williams.
"It really tests you."
Williams remembers one patient
in particular, an old man who came in
with his daughter. The rest of their
family had perished in the quake, and
the man's spirit was crushed along with his body. He soon went into
a coma and for several days, doctors and nurses labored to keep him
alive. When the doctor told his daughter that he had only an hour
left, both doctor and daughter burst into tears.
"The daughter started screaming, and they don't cry in French,
they holler just the same way we do," said Williams. "You don't even
know what happens afterwards because you just go on to the next
bed, but these are things you remember for the rest of your life."
Mike Brewer, RN (left)
with some of the young
people he has rescued
from the streets of Port
au Prince in a decade of
working with homeless
youth there.
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
