I may have spoken too soon about repairing equipment following the earthquake. Yesterday was our grand adventure to the main state-owned teaching hospital in Port-au-Prince. The drive to the hospital passed by the Palais National, which although still spectacular, is spectacularly at least a full level lower than its original height. The surrounding parks are full of tents and make shift homes built primarily out of scrap wood, corrugated metal, and tarps sometimes labeled with the names of different aid organizations. Passing by countless piles of rubble, leaning walls held up by one or two bars of rebar, and mangled nests of iron I understand the general fear of sleeping under roofs. It’s still difficult to imagine the scene of watching buildings rapidly become piles of rubble not only in the first earthquake but in multiple aftershocks.
The hospital itself was quite damaged, though most of the buildings are still standing, as far as I could tell. Large operations have been set up in tents under the trees, while the large concrete
buildings stand empty. The entire clinical lab is being run in a tent, where I discovered a rather innovative use for babyfood jars - holding urine samples!The operating theater is actually in a building, fortunately... though it is also a temporary setup. The contrast is striking between the folding tables, piles of boxes containing drugs, and makeshift hand-washing stations and the eerily empty hallways leading into the well built operating theaters with designated prep rooms. We had a rather satisfying quick fix on an x-ray view box in these empty operating theaters, but one wonders how long it will be before hospital operations return to the building. I've been told that this particular building has been approved for safety by a team of engineers, but people are still hesitant to return to working indoors.
Another building that stands abandoned is perhaps even more disturbing. The clinical laboratory building is still standing, but there are broken windows and open cabinets among the rooms. Chairs and tables have been removed to set up the tents. We were shown empty rooms where microscopes once lined the counters. Now there's a box in the corner with the expensive pieces piled on
top of each other. Incubators and refrigerators have been strewn open and vials with blood are broken all over the floor, some mounded high in the sink. Everything in the building is covered in dust and remains to be tested. Our later trips may involve a trip back to this hospital just to plug machines in and find out whether or not they work. I suppose it's not really my place to try and make light of things, but with such a beautiful tree as your waiting room, things could be worse.
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