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Haitians await care at a clinic in Port-au-Prince this week. A local doctor on a medical mission there reports that some earthquake victims are just now getting treatment for broken bones and open wounds suffered two weeks ago.
Dr. Clifton Sheets and others in the area are scheduled Dr. Clifton Sheets says he was overwhelmed by the local response to a call for medical supplies for a Haiti aid mission. |
By JIM HALL
This week, Dr. Clifton Sheets heard from a colleague who had just arrived in Haiti. The message from Dr. Michael Goeden was that conditions there were worse than he had imagined.
Goeden said he and others in a medical mission group were treating people with open wounds and fractures from the Jan. 12 earthquake.
"Can you imagine going two weeks with no fracture care?" Sheets asked.
Sheets said Wednesday that he expects to be providing the same type of care, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. He and others in an International Allied Missions-sponsored group leave tonight for a week-long stay in Haiti.
The group is headed for the area near Kenscoff, south of where Goeden is working. Both men are former emergency room doctors at Mary Washington Hospital and now own a pair of urgent care centers in Spotsylvania County.
Goeden is with Dr. Timothy Powell, a local internist/pediatrician, and other volunteers from Christ Church of Fredericksburg.
Sheets will be joined by Dr. Claudia Sussdorf, a Fredericksburg pediatrician; Dr. Christopher Huesgen, an emergency room doctor at Mary Washington Hospital; and 24 others from Tennessee, Illinois and Georgia.
Their trip was long planned, and they had sent ahead medicines and other supplies to await them. Then the earthquake hit.
Sheets said the group despaired of ever reaching Haiti, or of having any supplies to work with if they did get there. They had given away their medicines to those treating earthquake victims.
But the group was allowed to board a United Airlines humanitarian flight, leaving from Chicago tomorrow morning for Port-au-Prince. And when word spread that they needed replacement supplies, donations poured in from Fredericksburg residents and others.
Sheets said the group was able to buy 30 boxes of medicines and bandages that will be placed aboard their Chicago plane. They also will take donated cartons of packaged "meals ready to eat" so they do not have to eat food that might better go to the Haitians.
"The response from Fredericksburg has been overwhelming," Sheets said. "Adversity doesn't develop character. It reveals it. This has revealed how generous the people around here really are."
Jim Hall: 504/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com
If possible, Dr. Sheets will report from Haiti on conditions there and the work the group is doing. Look for his reports soon in
