SUNY Downstate Medical Center

TO: The Downstate Community

FROM: Institutional Advancement

DATE: February 24, 2010

SUBJECT: Downstate Staff Helping Haiti

We want to share with the campus the latest information on what members of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center community have been doing to help the people of Haiti. As you know, various departments joined together immediately after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince to provide counseling and mental health services to the large Haitian-American population in Brooklyn.

But SUNY Downstate employees have also traveled to Haiti to provide much-needed medical services in the Port-au-Prince area. Most recently, eight physicians and nurses from Downstate and Kings County Hospital Center traveled to Haiti on February 14, spending five days assisting in the Emergency Department at Port-au-Prince’s University Hospital. The trip was organized by EMEDEX International, a nonprofit international emergency medicine organization formed by emergency medicine physicians at Downstate and Kings County that has worked in several developing countries. The trip was supported in part through their own personal contributions.

Dr. Robert Gore, who has volunteered in Haiti before, arrived in Port-au-Prince a few days in advance to make arrangements so that the Downstate group could hit the ground running. “We got off the plane, dropped off our bags, put stethoscopes on, and started working,” said Dr. Christina Bloem.

Working under tents that have been set up on the hospital’s courtyard, the team split into three shifts and was able to provide overnight emergency room coverage that previously had been lacking. The Downstate doctors and nurses, who included three of Haitian descent, saw a variety of emergent and chronic conditions. While some of the medical complaints were related to the earthquake, many were typical emergency room kinds of injuries and illnesses. Because of the widespread destruction of the both the physical and governmental infrastructure, people needing medical attention have few options beyond the field hospital operations being run by volunteer organizations from around the world.

In addition to Drs. Bloem and Gore, the team included Drs. Trushar Naik, Joshua Schechter, and Ernest Garnier and emergency department nurses Eunide Dannell, Debra Barrow, and Marie France Senat-Zephir.

The group plans to return to Haiti in April and expects to do some fundraising activities to pay for a series of visits to help the Haitian people. A Daily News article on the team's efforts last week is available here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/02/22/2010-02-22_brooklyn_docs__nurses_angry_as_haitian_boy_dies_needlessly_humanistic_aspects_of.html

Other physicians from Downstate who have recently gone to Haiti include Dr. Lorenzo Paladino and Dr. Margaret Donat.

Dr. Paladino’s group spent most of their week in Haiti traveling with backpacks into the more remote areas surrounding Port-au-Prince, often providing care to people who had not received any medical attention since the January 12 quake. He reported that a large number of the people have had amputations.

Dr. Donat described the scene in Haiti as heartbreaking and overwhelming. “I had a tent of 21 patients that I took care of, and all of them had either one or more amputated limbs – arms, legs, feet, or toes,” she said. “There are no prostheses available, no psychiatrists to help them cope with the trauma of not just losing body parts, but also losing loved ones and dealing with the pain, suffering, and devastation. People who worked all their life to build their dream house are now homeless.” She added, “There is so much to be done. I am imploring anyone who can to please lend a hand. Haiti needs our help.”