Global Understanding

One man’s mission to Haiti

By: Frank Izaguirre, MFACW ’11

Luis Ramos’s recent trip to Haiti as part of the international relief effort in the wake of the terrifying earthquake can’t be explained by specific motivations. "It’s an obligation," he says with earnest conviction. Luis’ experience as the director of Chatham’s Physician Assistant Program and many years of service as a Navy corpsman helped prepare him for the situation.

The earthquake that has left over 230,000 dead occurred on January 12, its epicenter slightly west of Port-au-Prince. Luis arrived a little under two weeks later on the 25th, staying until the 29th when he needed to return for work. He traveled on a chartered flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince with a roughly 30 person team organized by the relief organization Miami Rescue Mission. The team included surgeons and other physicians, as well as nurses and media.

"Once we arrived in Port-au-Prince, we were on our own,” he says. “We were only guaranteed a flight in. Then we had to figure out how to get back out." In the first few waves of aid of which he was a part, there was extremely little organization, and many eager volunteers were unable to reach victims in need in the outskirts of the city.

"The surgeons were almost fighting for patients," Luis adds. They were unable to get further inland to where there were still many unattended victims because there was no communication and the infrastructure of the city was essentially non-existent. Most of his group left early because they couldn’t find people to help.

One nurse in his team, who was Haitian-American and spoke Creole, told Luis that she had found a tent city that had no aid workers. He and one reporter, the only people that stayed from their original group, made their way to the camp. It was close to the airport but because of all the destruction and chaos had not yet received any help.

There were over 300 people there, almost all of them requiring some medical attention. Luis and the nurse teamed up with a Haitian seminary that had previously attended some medical school. The seminary spoke some Spanish, and so Luis, who was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was able to speak with him a little. Through the seminary and the nurse, Luis was sometimes able to communicate with his patients, but more often relied on the universality of hand motions and other gestures.

Most of his patients suffered from infections, fractures, and lacerations. He particularly recalls one young girl whose pinky and ring fingers were missing from one hand, although parts of the bone still stuck out. Initially, he was armed only with a thermometer and a blood pressure cuff, tools he’d brought with him and left when he returned home.

Luis estimates that 80-90% of the injured he saw were children. He felt most overwhelmed by another girl with three younger brothers in the camp. The nurse translated, and Luis learned that the earthquake had left them orphaned. They needed food and had nothing besides the clothes they wore. "I was stunned by their absolutely incredible resilience," he says.

After the first few days, other relief workers began discovering the camp, and other physicians and volunteers arrived along with more desperately needed supplies. Even so, there were many wounds that could not be properly treated, such as some of the various infections that had developed. They had antibiotics that effectively treated some of those infections, but not others.

The only food available for the people in the camp was one daily bowl of rice per tent, no matter how many people slept in it. Besides that, everyone was on their own to determine where their other meals came from. The tents themselves were erected from sheets, sticks, cardboard, or whatever anyone could get their hands on.

Luis estimates he saw at least 100 patients a day. "There was no time to think about food,” he says. “I didn’t even think about being hungry." He gave the PowerBars his wife had packed for him to some kids that watched him while he tried to eat one after a day of treating the wounded.

Beyond the sights of desperation and the human ability to endure, Luis remembers well the sounds and smells. Millions of people were out in the streets amidst honking cars and flying dust. The burning garbage masked the smell of rotting flesh. "It was at first pungent, but after awhile you don’t smell it," Luis recalls.

He saw many people wandering around that appeared to be hysterical. Some had no expressions on their faces, still in shock of what had happened.

Luis never felt as if he was in danger. He slept on the floor in a compound adjacent to the tent city with a bakery that had been able to stay open and continue making bread. When he finally had to return home, he felt guilty for leaving. "I should be staying," he remembers thinking to himself, frustrated his time was up.

The most important thing Luis insists Americans should remember is that Haitians are in just as bad a need for help now as they were right after the earthquake. "It’s been just one month and you don’t hear anything,” he says. “The help needs to continue. That’s why I’m going back."

Luis has organized a return trip from March 13-20 to work at a hospital with six of the students in the Chatham Physician Assistant Program he directs. "Help has to be sustained,” he adds. “They need more than a one-time thing."

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and suffers from dire poverty. To understand the current situation post-earthquake, Luis says, "multiply that by one hundred."

There was no rain while he was there, which would have made the situation ever worse. Eventually, the rain will come, and that will bring the threat of cholera, typhoid, and a greater risk of infestation.

"Those people are going to need help for years." Luis insists that the people of Haiti will be in need more than ever after the initial flurry of aid relents and the crisis is forgotten.

This article originally appeared in the spring 2010 Chatham Recorder