Haitians Dying In Hospital From Lack Of Supplies

[happy_liberal]

By the time he was moved to a U.N. hospital Tuesday morning, gangrene was spreading up his broken left leg. His body was beginning to collapse with an infection that caused severe dehydration. Dying muscles were creating massive pressure in his swollen legs and releasing toxins and salts that attacked the kidneys.

"He's dying right now in front of our eyes," said Dr. Roberto Feliz. "What's so frustrating is that we don't have the basic equipment that would save him."

"He's a young, strong guy. In any normal hospital he'd survive."...

At 11:15 a.m., Lagredelle's condition was critical. Some of the doctors wanted to just let him go, freeing their time for the dozens of other patients in need of urgent help.

But Dr. Enrique Ginzberg, of the University of Miami Hospital, decided to lead a team of 11 medics and doctors to keep him alive. They tried to revive Lagredelle with more intravenous fluids, cutting at his swollen legs with a scalpel and raising them to bring more blood to the heart.

"I couldn't just let him go, and that's my decision," Ginzberg said. "We've had one too many people like this die in front of us."...

At 11:58 a.m., Feliz's smile had slipped. He stood up from Lagredelle's body to form an "X" with his forearms, which tells nurses the patient is dead.

"It's over," he said.

Still, he wouldn't give up. Again, he pressed two fingers against Lagredelle's neck, hoping for a pulse, and thinking he'd found one.

"Actually no, it's agony!" he said, rejoicing at the beat of his patient's heart and injecting a full syringe of adrenaline into Lagredelle's arm.

Exactly at noon, the top of the hour, it was over.

"O.K. Stop," Feliz said. He made the "X" sign again.

A few yards (meters) away, Lagredelle's mother only realized what had happened when a nurse pulled a blue sheet over the patient's face.

She wailed in despair at the death of her only son.

"We did all we could. We did all we could," Feliz kept repeating as he hugged her.

"For one minute there, I really thought we'd save him," he said to himself.

Then urgently he was called away to attend to another desperate patient.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/haiti-needs-supplies_n_429288.html