Highlights

Campus News

Wildcat Weekly Minute for Nov. 17, 2011

A look at what's happening on campus this week.

Faith

Cleansed through the Cross

Dr. Quarles speaks on the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice at weekly chapel

Sports

LC hoops teams wrap up homestand with pair of wins

Off to Ozarks, UT-Dallas next

Organizations

LC media student give to Toys for Tots

More than 100 toys will help local charity

Campus Life

February is Heart Health Awareness Month

Stay healthy and 'God Red'

Culture

All the Shakespeare you could laugh at… and more!

tlc's adaptation of 'Shakespeare Abridged' pulls out all the stops

Special Coverage

LC brings another successful ‘Follow the Star’

'Christmas on the Hill' and 'Gala' add to festive weekend

Medical mission team at Good Samaritan hospital heals wounds

by Sarah Hudson

LA team in Jimani, Dominican Republic heals physical and emotional wounds.

A white two-story building stands under a clear blue sky in front of a beautiful backdrop of mountains. A view of a lake that runs from the Dominican Republic into Haiti can be seen in the distance. Surrounded by all of God’s creation, here stands Good Samaritan Hospital in Jimani, Dominican Republic.

Before the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, Good Samaritan was empty with the possibility to open as medical clinic. Just days after the earthquake, Good Samaritan became a bustling area for trauma patients of all ages.

Just five days after the quake, International Mission Board missionary, Delores York arrived at Good Samaritan with the intention of helping out in whatever ways were needed. After walking in to have a tour of the hospital, she found herself taking on around 30 patients. Crawling on her knees from patient to patient on the ground with no blood pressure cuff, thermometer or any other basic medical tool, she used her hands to check temperatures, heartbeats and breathing.

There were little to no medical records for the patients; usually a simple sheet of paper with a name written down. Despite the difficult medical conditions, York worked for days on end only sleeping for a few hours a day. More medical volunteers began to show up and it was seen that York would be more valuable as an interpreter since she could fluently speak both Spanish and Creole.

“I would talk to the patients who had lost arms and legs and I told them, ‘God has pulled you out from under all that trash and all of that fallen building, and he saved your life for a reason. I don’t know why some people lost their lives, but he saved yours and now you owe him your life,’” York said. “And they’d say, ‘yes we do, we do.’”



Getting help from LC team

Six weeks after the earthquake, Good Samaritan Hospital still held 52 patients. The medical volunteer group headed up by Dwayne Rogers from Louisiana College showed up to staff the hospital during its last week of operation.

After a change of plans, the team split and only six stayed to work at Good Samaritan.

With five nurses and one doctor, the team busied themselves with plenty of wound care, giving out medicine and caring for the emotional needs of patients.

Dana Mays was the one doctor on staff from the Louisiana team. At home she is doing her residency in general medicine and at Good Samaritan her broad knowledge of medicine was needed. She was made the medical director of the hospital.

Mays saw every patient in the hospital over the course of her four days of work there, but one patient in particular stood out in her memory. Leonie Laurrent was 39 years old, with two children. As a finance worker for the Haitian government, she was a hard-working upper middle class citizen who found herself buried under rubble for four days with no food and water after the earthquake.

Laurrent sustained several injuries, including deep wounds to her knee, hip and heel. She also had to have two of her toes removed due to injury.

Mays recalled that Laurrent was special to her because when she was just three years old she was involved in an accident and had to have some of her toes removed.

“I had lots of struggles and difficulties in life because of that,” Mays said. “It wasn’t easy for me, but I felt like at some point I probably needed to show her what had happened to me.”

Mays hopes that this was an encouragement to Laurrent and that she would realize that life can go on even in difficult circumstances, she said.

Louisiana nurse finds inspiration

Louisiana team member Lisa Miles, a Registered Nurse in pediatrics, worked all areas of the hospital and also said that Laurrent made a profound impact on her life. Miles worked the night shift during her first few days at Good Samaritan, but on her last day as a volunteer she worked the day shift and met Laurrent.

“It was an instant connection,” Miles said. “She was one of my five patients, but she was the first one I met. She just had this smile.”

Miles recalled that Laurrent never complained, always had a smile on her face and was often found reading her Bible with her two children.

“Mrs. Leonie was so loving,” Miles said. “She would sing during the day. With everything she’s been through, she could still be so happy and joyful.”

On her last day in Jimani, Miles did not work at the hospital, but she had the opportunity to go back and tell Laurrent goodbye. After hugging her and taking a few pictures with her, Miles pinned a small jeweled cross onto Laurrent’s gown as a gift. In a very short time, Laurrent made an impact on the doctors and nurses as a strong woman who had weathered the storm and who had been pulled out of the rubble with a zeal for life that could only be found through Jesus Christ.

Every night in the chapel where the pediatric patients were held, one girl’s stepfather, who was a pastor and interpreter, held a church service for the hospital.

“They would sing and clap and he would speak to them for a few minutes,” Miles said.

These people have survived dehydration, starvation, anemia and much more, but still have joy and are thankful to be alive, said Miles.

It may have been to the team’s disbelief that most of the patients were happy, but by working the night shift from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. on two different occasions,
Miles saw that the emotional trauma for the earthquake victims was still evident. Miles recalled several instances of patients waking up in the middle of the
night with terrified screams after nightmares.

“There was one mom who lost three of her four children,” Miles said. “The one child that survived has his legs crushed from bodies laying on top of him. She
had a dream one night that her dead children were in the bed with her, and she woke up screaming.”

Miles also said that a different woman began shrieking one night after dreaming that bad spirits surrounded her. The lady thought that another earthquake was going to happen.

“She was shaking so hard that we thought she was having a seizure,” Miles said. “That lasted for 45 minutes until the doctors could give her medicine to calm her down.”

Different than U.S. hospitals

Johile Curtis, a Registered Nurse in Intensive Care in the states, also worked in every area of the hospital. He spoke about one patient who was 16 weeks pregnant and had been injured by the earthquake.

“She asked one of the other nurses to take the baby home,” Curtis said. “She just didn’t think she could provide for the baby and would rather give it a good life.”

Curtis said that working at Good Samaritan was much different from working in the U.S. because there was very little charting. It was nearly impossible to know the history of the patient, unless the patient could speak English or a translator was available.

On one occasion Curtis worked with an elderly woman who died later in the week. She had a broken bone in her leg and was believed to have had a stroke, although this could not be confirmed.

“We don’t know what kind of care she had before because there was very little charting,” Curtis said.

This particular lady was at a different hospital in the Dominican Republic and was transferred to Good Samaritan after a few weeks.

Curtis was amazed at how the families cared for one another and for the dead.

“Her family was amazing,” Curtis said. “They all took care of each other, and even complete strangers became like family and would bathe the patients and do things for them. I found it so touching.”

The families also took care of all post-mortem care. This woman’s family cleaned her body up and had a funeral service for her at the hospital.

“I really believe we are missing something in the U.S.,” Curtis said. “For these people to go through something like this and be so nice and kind to each other is amazing.”

Volunteers work together

Karla Hebert is a registered nurse in Louisiana, but worked as a pharmacist at Good Samaritan for the week. Doctors and nurses would come in for prescriptions and sometimes patients would come in with a stamped paper asking for medicine.

“The language difference was hard for me,” Hebert said. “It was awesome, though, to see people who could speak Creole, Spanish and English at the hospital. They made a world of difference.”

Hebert also noticed that all of the volunteers at Good Samaritan had the ability to put all differences aside and work together.

“I got to meet a lot of people,” Hebert said. “A plastic surgeon from California, Peace Corp workers, college students…It was great to see everyone coming together to get it done.”

Sunday, Feb. 28 was the last day that Good Samaritan hospital housed and treated patients. All of the patients were moved out and sent back to Haiti to finish medical treatment, or if they were well enough, they were released.

Tents were taken down and the hustle and bustle of a busy medical staff was nowhere to be found, but the memory of the events at Good Samaritan hospital will forever remain with the Haitian people and the countless numbers of doctors and nurses who helped to change lives there.

This entry has been viewed 1393 times.