Jason O'Brien: Fight for life begins with struggle for hospital bed
A little fighter: Five-year-old Anne Colin battling her injuries in hospital
Tuesday January 26 2010
MEET Anne Colin. Among the five-year-old's interests is reading, skipping, and "playing hospital" with her sisters. The situation the little fighter now finds herself in is certainly not a game.
Anne was pulled from the rubble of her family home four days after the quake. Her head was between her legs, the concrete bearing down on her slowly crushed her skull.
"She hasn't said much since we got her out but when she was in there she heard her grandmother screaming her name," her father Waldo said yesterday. "Don't worry," she answered. "I won't die cos I've got Jesus in my heart."
She certainly had someone or something powerful on her side.
After she was pulled clear, a team of Canadian doctors were on hand to give her vital first aid, immediately covering the gaping holes in her head and pumping her full of antibiotics to stave off infection. Yesterday, she was brought to a hospital in Delmas by her father to undergo plastic surgery to cover an exposed bone in the centre of her forehead.
The doctor explained to Waldo that he would move a flap of skin from another part of her forehead, and might have to take a skin graft if that wasn't enough. "It will leave some scarring," he said.
"That's of secondary importance," Waldo answered. "I thought I'd lost her forever, and when I pulled her out I thought she was too badly injured to survive, especially with the healthcare in Haiti which was poor even before the quake.
"She will be out of here in two or three days. She is getting great care."
She was in a little pain but answered shyly to the doctor examining her, waving a paper fan in her face.
A small team of Irish medics joined the small hospital yesterday and with its security, its small number of patients -- five to seven operations per day -- and teams of specialised doctors from the US and UK, it certainly seems that the little fighter couldn't have ended up in a better place in the city.
But few in Port-au-Prince have been so lucky, even those who survived and got a hospital bed.
Meet Bob-Judeson Preval.
Among the 20-year-old's interests -- like many 20-year-olds -- are TV, football and going out. He was also training to be a mechanic. The latter career is no longer an option. And a lot of the fight has gone out of him.
Bob-Judeson was pulled from the rubble of his classroom two days after the quake. Concrete blocks had crushed his left arm. He was brought to hospital in the middle of Port-au-Prince immediately. It was eight days before his arm was operated on. It was amputated just below the shoulder.
"Too many blocks fell on it I think," he said yesterday. "I don't think they could save it, but it was a long time before the doctor was able to do an operation so I don't know . . ."
His voice trailed off as he glanced at the stump, his eyes dead.
In the hospital in Delmas, surgical-medicinal co-ordinator Tony Redman had earlier said that all the patients his staff had dealt with since opening last week had "received some sort of procedure".
"It has varied in quality, and sometimes it is hard to identify why some surgeries or amputations were carried out," he said.
Back in Port-au-Prince, Bob-Judeson is manifestly bored despite the organised chaos going on around him.
He has managed to get a bed -- many more are laid out on stretchers in front of the main door -- but he doesn't know what his future holds.
"I need medicine but sometimes it is painful," he said.
"This is the best place to be. I have nowhere else to go -- our home was destroyed."
His mother nods in agreement, waving a paper fan over his body.
Outside the hospital, an American soldier warns us to get moving as more sick and injured attempt to join the hundreds already lying in every available place inside. "It's getting angry out here," he says.
- Jason O'Brien
Irish Independent
