The wrap-up...

Well I have been trying to work through my last couple of days in Haiti in my head so I could get it on the screen and it make sense. Thursday and Friday had to be the toughest 2 days of the whole trip for many reasons. First off, there is always that sadness because you know you will be leaving soon. The staff at the CTC only worked 3 or 4 days a week so we had to start saying our goodbyes before we were actually ready. Then the staff at the CTC found out that it looks like it will be closing the end of May...so sad for all our friends who will be losing jobs. Most of the international staff had left so we were "short-staffed" too, so the few that remained had to kick it up a notch to make up for it. On Thursday, we had a 7 month old come in who looked dehydrated but I couldn't get a line in him. After 3 unsuccessful attempts and a triage tent that was filling up, I called one of the SP staff to come take a look. I got busy with other patients and they had taken the baby to the back so I didn't know what was going on. About 45 minutes later, one of the NP's comes running out to triage and tells me I need to get a line in this baby "NOW." I head to the back to find the baby now with a fever of 105.9 and labored breathing. Definitely not choleresque! (new Sheri word!) The staff and I start talking to the mom more and decide that he never exhibited signs of cholera and we need to transfer him sooner rather than later. In just those few minutes of trying to set up the transfer you could see the dramatic decline in the baby. He was becoming less responsive and his breathing was getting worse. In our American minds it seems so easy to transfer someone to a hospital that can actually take care of the problem, but here in Haiti it doesn't work like that. We were a cholera treatment center, specialized for just that. But families would bring patients with all sorts of problems to be seen. The problem is, once they show up at the CTC you basically have to prove they don't have cholera before any other facility will accept them...thus wasting precious time in this case. If this child truly had cholera, there would have been nothing for us to do, except treat as best we could with what minimal resources we had. In the end, the baby died either on the way to the hospital or soon after they got there. Still hurts to think about it. Probably one of the most hopeless feelings there is...