Dr. William Guyol in Haiti with an earthquake survivor.

(Updated February 1, 2010) Dr. William Guyol, a physician at SSM St. Mary's Health Center, in Richmond Heights, Mo., and two other SSM caregivers left for Milot, Haiti on January 25 from St. Louis.; they returned Jan. 30.  ( See new photos here.) Dr. Guyol has volunteered at Hopital Sacre Coeur in Milot for many years, and it is one of the few hospitals still operating in Haiti after the earthquake. The hospital is sponsored by CRUDEM, as was the medical mission. Guyol is a board for CRUDEM.


January 30, 2010
(Dr. Guyol returned to St. Louis on Saturday evening on a flight from Haiti. He talked about his lasting impressions of his medical mission. Here are some excerpts.  Watch video of their return.)

We had a number of physicians from the SSM system and a number of physicians from the hospital in Columbia, Mo. And we were with physicians from all over the country - orthopedists, anesthesiologists, ER physicians. Their performance was incredible.

We were carrying up to 300 patients at a time (at Hopital Sacre Coeur). All with horrible trauma, horrifying trauma. Spinal chord injuries, multiple fractures, amputations. Almost all were surgical cases. The orthopedists were amazing. The first couple of weeks they operated till midnight every night, got up at 6 a.m. and did it again. We're now entering a phase where most of the acute trauma from Port-au-Prince has come. We're seeing people come from around Port-au-Prince who were in the care of other aid agencies. We are now the largest hospital in Haiti. We saw a lot of people and there are a lot of stories...

The need is HUGE. One of our problems is that nobody can go home because there's no home to go to. So we now have people who are post-op and stable and have nothing and no place to go. Our needs, as far as acute care, are still existing. Instead of 70 patients a day, we're getting 15 patients a day, which is plenty for a hospital this size. We have 300 people who need care. Hopefully, eventually, most of them will move to where it's a chronic situation. A tent on a soccer field near where we are. These people are refugees and have no place to go. Right now they're ours. And their families are here now. They're in the hospital sleeping on the floor with no food, no money and no means of support. And they're ours.

We still have a lot of people who need re-operation - infected stumps, bed sores and surgical fractures are coming from other hospitals that have been pinned together. We're going to be busy for months. I'm going back in two weeks.

SSM has been very generous in arranging supplies and, as I understand it, getting personnel to staff this mission will not be difficult. We are going to need more. We need nurses. Right now, because of travel difficulties we can't get enough people into the country. There are plenty who want to go. People are incredibly generous. Commercial flights are starting so hopefully things will loosen up. So that we can bring teams that are large enough with the right kind of people in. We've been in a trauma mode - surgeons, anesthesiologists, critical care people, ER people - and now we need to take care of them. They're all getting infections. They don't have cots. They're lying on the concrete floor on a straw mat. We've been hoping for two weeks to get cots - a simple thing that will save lives and prevent infections. They're getting ther e. We will take care of these people, bu t it will be months. We've done an extraordinary job with what we've had so far. We've been stretched to the limits of physical and mental abilities to get through this.

January 25, 2010
(Here is an excerpt from a me ssage from Dr. Guyol on his first day in Milot.)
MILOT, HAITI - Greetings from Milot, Haiti! In the last four days many people went to extraordinary lengths to help put together a med ical team to relieve the hard-pressed volunteers and staff at Hôpital Sacré Coeur. We arrived at the Crudem compound in Milot, Haiti today. It is like coming home, but different this time. The hospital and the town have been transformed. Over the next week, I will try to tell you the story of the hospital and our volunteers.
  
Our team
When our (Center for the Rural Development of Milot) foundation board preside nt Dr. Peter Kelly emailed me Thursday stating he needed internists, pediatricians and nurses this week, I was amazed by the response. Charles Dubuque called nurse Jennifer Bagett from Boone Hospital in Columbia and immediately had 9 team members within an hour. A call to the chief of pediatrics at SSM Cardinal Glennon gave me the name Bob Flood, direct or of t heir ER, and an extraordinary flight nurse Mary Laffey. Got a few pictures but no time for names yet.

Reality strikes
The smell of burning rubbish, foul cisterns and the wet heat hit you when the plane door opens. Driving from Cap Haitian always give you 45 minutes to realize you are not in Kansas anymore. The relatively nice businesses in Cap Haitian made out of  stacked cinderblock with concrete or tin roofs soon give way to rural houses of sticks, mud and thatch. Guess which type of house could survive the earthquake in Port au Prince.

CRUDEM
There was an onslaught of 45-50 patients per day for the past week. 174 major orthopedic and other surgical cases had been done that week. Our hospital with two ORs was jerry- rigged to have four. A new “hospital” was formed out of a school across the street. Post-op patients on mattresses or straw mats 8 per room. The high school was turned into an “emergency room” with the rooms being a grid drawn with chalk on the bask etball court.  Patients on the ground. Stretchers if they are lucky. Pediatric wards, makeshift pharm acy and supply rooms on t he left, less critical patients in the 8 rooms to the right. The lucky ones have two benches put together for a bed with a mattress. Most on the floor straw mats. Floors are swept daily with antiseptic thrown on the concrete before the mattress is thrown back down. Medicine is practiced on the knees here.
  
We were to get an extra 100 cots yesterday but it was hijacked or stolen, possibly by another aid agency. We are trying to find them and find out whether it was a honest mistake or a desperate act of theft by well-meaning  people in a bind like we are.
 
The people here are exhausted. They are happy to see reinforcements.  Most work 16-20 hour days, miss their meals, showers, beds. What they did here was extraordinary. I cannot describe how valiantly this organization has responded to this crisis. The number of people who dropped all job and family ressponsibilities and rushed to Haiti restores my faith in mankind's capacity to love. This was a war - chaotic, bloody, full of human misery, stoicism, inconsolable loss and heroic virtue.
  
We were greeted with the tears of volunteers on our arrival. They showed us a young couple sitting on a mattress on the grass next to our residence. Fr. Frank, a nurse from Boston and several of our staff were trying to console them. Their beautiful 4 year old daughter had just died of tetanus. My interpreter Patrick was crushed - she had calle d him Papa.

We need your help. Partners in Health, started by Paul Farmer, raised 26 million the past two weeks. We raised $500,000 an d are thrilled. We care for the same number of patients and they do very little surgery. We need to be known not for our glory, but as a means to get the support we need .  There is an incredible story here that needs to be told. We need your prayers but most importantly we need your money. This type of expansion of our resp o nsibilities comes at a great price - human and monetary. Please spread this email to your friends and ask them to go to www.crudem.org/give  and support this mission.

The first battle is near an end. Only a couple of helicopters today. The French came twice. They wanted a Coke. Next comes stump revisions, infection treatment, rehabilitation, etc. Then the biggest problem is where do t hey go. These patients have lost everything - family, friends, job, house, health and now hope. We are erecting tent cities and hope the Red Cross or another organization can help provide food, latrines, water and placement.  Tomorrow I become the “bed czar” deciding who stays and who goes, but there is no place to go. God help me.

I don’t know when I can write again. I’ll try to keep in touch and send pictures when I can.

 Watch video of SSM caregivers and other volunteers as they departed for Haiti on Jan. 25.

(Home page photo from www.crudem.org)