National Nurses United

Haiti_FNL 2/25/10 11:59 AM Page 25 Aboard the USNS Comfort National Nurses United members joined a Navy mission to care for the quake's most seriously injured. Operating room nurses from National Nurses United's Registered Nurse Relief Network have been working round the clock assisting with surgeries on severely wounded patients aboard a floating hospital off the coast of Haiti. At press time, one delegation of RNRN volunteers had recently returned to the United States and another had just arrived on the USNS Comfort, a Navy ship that received transports of patients with urgent conditions from the mainland. Nurses described a massive volume of cases with dramatic injuries that far outpace what they see in their jobs at high-level trauma centers in the United States. "I have never seen so many broken bones and such traumatic injuries," said Lauren Aichele, RN, an operating room nurse at the University of California in San Francisco. Aichele saw paralyzed patients and those suffering from tuberculosis and tetanus, as well as those who had languished for weeks without treatment, often waiting so long for care that their fractures had already started to heal, making them more difficult to fix. "Some people had to choose between amputation and death because of gangrene," said Aichele. "Some chose death." Despite the tremendous suffering, there were moments of hope for the nurses, who spent up to 30 hours at a time in surgery and bunked in a dorm with dozens of other volunteers. Aichele remembers clearly a boy of about 10 who was found alone in an orphanage in the days after the quake and had a large tumor on his eye. "He couldn't walk or talk and someone brought him by motorcycle to a Haitian hospital before he was flown to the ship," said Aichele. "He wanted to bump fists with everyone he saw and it was touching to JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2010 NNU members Lauren Aichele, RN and Tim Thomas, RN (bottom) joined Navy personnel and nurses from around the country on the surgical team of the USNS Comfort. see him happy despite what he had been through." Volunteers said they were motivated by the opportunity to provide not only medical attention but also psychological support for patients. "It's an emotional situation. I feel for those people," said Lansing, Michigan RN Ashley Forsberg. A state-of-the-art facility, the Comfort houses 12 operating rooms and over 1000 beds. RNRN volunteers provided muchneeded relief for their Navy colleagues, many of whom had been working for weeks with no rest, caring for large numbers of earthquake survivors. The team operated on up to 25 patients a day, many with multiple crush injuries. The RNs cared for some patients who had lost not only their health but all their material possessions in the quake. "In the states when you performing emergency surgery you don't worry about preserving the clothes a person may be wearing," explained Patricia Taylor, RN, an 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 operating room nurse at Stroger Hospital in Chicago. "Here a woman may come in with literally only a shirt on her back. You have to prep very carefully and make sure that you don't separate her from her clothing or stain it." The deployments are part of an ongoing collaboration between National Nurses United and the United States Navy to assist earthquake victims, funded by NNU's Send a Nurse campaign. Nurses returning from service aboard the Comfort described it as a life-changing experience. "The two weeks went fast, and I didn't feel ready to leave," said Aichele. "I wanted to do more." N AT I O N A L N U R S E 25

• Cover