Update from Hopital De Fermathe in Haiti – First hand account of tragedy
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Following is an update that I received last night that I wanted to share. It is a first hand account of the tragedy that is upon us. Jean Angus is with Hopital De Fermathe in Haiti.
Thank you for your support of the Haitian people. Dr. Guerry is flying into Haiti today. We hope to have more details from him which we will post to our website. Please continue to pray for the people in Haiti – both those struck by the tragedy and those rushing into the country to provide relief.
God Bless You All,
Dr. Bob Johnson
Dear Danny,
Dear TECH members,
Dear Pastor Wallace,
Thank you very much for your good words and for your thoughts with regards to the earthquake that badly hit part of Haiti on Jan 12. I was still at the Mission when it happened.
Believe me, it has been quite an unpleasant experience for us all. From the strength of it, we anticipated that the Misssion’s hospital “Hopital De Fermathe” would have to assume the responsibility to take care of the population in the Fermathe area. Indeed, within hours, the hospital started receiving the first patients. In no time, we were overwelmed by the importance of cases coming to us crying for help. People came from Delmas, from Petion Ville, from Kenscoff and from Fermathe.
As we were concerned about their number coming to us, with only two doctors present at the hospital and the nurses on duty, God sent 16 medical doctors and their staff to help us out. They were missionaries on their last day in country. They also had medication which also helped. We did respond to the need the best we could and we have taken care, during these two days, hundreds of patients. All our 84 beds were taken and people were on the floor, at the OR and at the emergency room. It was 2am when we stopped receiving patients on the first day. We had no idea of the importance of the dammages in other part of the country and in particular in Port-au-Prince, Leogane and Jacmel area.
The cases we received today were among the worse and we could not address all of them. We did release those who didn’t have severe injuries, after treatment, and kept a more than we could handle in our facilities.
It is only today that I realize that CNN was not exagerating in saying that the number of death will reach well over 100,000. We are finding dead people everywhere.
We could address this problem because we have been always supported by friends of the Mission and by many TECH members who have always helped the hospital. Thanks very much to you all.
We still need plaster, bandages, antibiotics, SAT injections, sutures, orthopedic hardware, anesthesia, and any other immerdency items etc.
Dead people are being found here and there and the number is rapidly increasing. Many big buildings colapsed and we will not find the bodies.
Unfortunately, Dr. Gerard Agenor, the Director of the Community health’ proram has been killed with the colapsing of his residence, One of our devoted driver, Rogen, also died under the same circomstances. Dispite all that, the Fermathe area has suffered much less than those in Port-au-Prince.
The chimney and a wall at the dining room of the Mission are gone but we didn’t suffer much structural dammages.
We thank God who saved us and our families and we pray for the family of those who didn’t make it.
In Christ,
Jean Angus