Melting pot of cases

The last two weeks had been abundant in experiences. I’ve seen more cases in the last two weeks than I have seen in a year working in an "occidental" hospital. Wounds were numerous, some infected, others infested with maggots, among other surprises...

Desperate cases were numerous, and the frustration caused by them is even more bitter as being in charge of these kind of cases is part of my daily agenda in Switzerland. Fractures that would require standard surgeries and protocol in any trauma center cannot receive the same treatment here in Haiti, where surgeries are limited by inadequate infrastructures...

I remember this man who came to our urgent care center with a wound on his right eye lid. Despite a rapid course of antibiotic treatment, the wound became quickly infected, so we suspected a case of Anthrax... We were forced to intubate the patient urgently because of respiratory problems. His face was so swollen that the intubation was performed in extremis. He managed to survive, but lost his eye...

Amongst many other cases, I remember taking care of a man in his 40s with a complex fracture of the proximal femur. His lower limb was shortened in external rotation. He was seeing by a doctor for the first time three weeks after the earthquake. I reduced the fracture and placed the limb in an 90° elevated traction.

Many children had come to our infrastructure, a great deal of them with wounds, as the one of this 6-year old boy who came to us with a scalp wound on his head. Closing that wound required several interventions including rotational flaps performed by a plastic surgeon that happened to be passing by.

A small 9-year old girl came to us with symptoms of osteomyelitis of her femur. Her case interested so many of us that a different diagnosis was set (we had x-rays done for her): sarcoma. We proceeded with a bone biopsy and sent the sample to the USA for analysis. The results were reassuring as the osteomyelitis was the correct diagnosis, we were then able to treat the wound with a course of antibiotics.

Three types of antibiotics were available: Cephalosporin, Penicillin and Ciproxin.

The daily grind comes with its load of unexpected situations. There are still everyday trauma that need to be taken care of: victims of motorcycle accidents, people that have fallen off of trucks or have been ran over. We also have a few cases of Appendicitis, Tetanus, Malaria, Dengue fever, etc...