Prosthetic Limbs, New Ailments

Volunteers with Project Medishare are beginning to report seeing post-earthquake ailments like malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, malnutrition, and a myriad of infectious diseases. According to Project Medishare nurse liaison Maguey Rochelin, children are becoming more at-risk to life-threatening diseases like malaria with so many families living outside in make-shift shelters, in close proximity to so many others, during the tropical rain season, and without adequate sanitary conditions.

Prior to the earthquake, the rate of TB was 10 times greater than in the rest of Latin America. Haiti saw 30,000 cases of malaria each year. The HIV rate is said to be between 2.5-5%. Those who had been treated for HIV and TB before the earthquake suddenly found themselves without the care they desperately needed. Organizations like Project Medishare are rebuilding and restaffing clinics and hospitals in the hopes of restoring and improving that level of care for those patients.

In just the past week, patients at the Haitian Community Hospital where Team Cleveland operated as well as patients at the Project Medishare Hospital are now being fitted for prosthetic limbs. Amputee patients at both facilities are under the care of volunteer orthopedic surgeons along with physical therapists. 24-year-old Manoushka Blanc, who lost her two sisters in the earthquake, also lost her right leg, recalls waking up from surgery. "It was like I was dreaming, I was still in shock from the earthquake. I didn't realize I had lost my leg - it was only a few days after that I realized it wasn't there. I accepted it because I know the doctors saved my life." For Manoushka, hope came in the form of a prosthetic limb. "When they told me about this new leg I stopped crying because I see hope for my future. I feel much better now knowing that I might be able to live a more normal life." At the Haitian Community Hospital, more than a dozen patients have already been fitted with prosthetic limbs thanks to a team from Connecticut. The hospital, however, has reported that they are in desperate need of prosthesis specialists.