Pediatrician Using Her Skills In Haiti

Project HOPE volunteer Dr. Marjorie Curran, 47, works as a pediatrician for the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children which is part of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. For twenty years the mother of three boys, age 11, 15 and 18, has worked for the hospital. She is married to a Mass. Gen. Radiologist. "I started as an intern and never left," she says.

When the earthquake struck Haiti, Marjorie signed up as a first-time volunteer. "I thought my set of skills would be of use," she says.

Over the last ten days she has seen and heard many heartbreaking stories.

"We had a baby in our unit who survived because his mother covered him with her body when the house in which they were in collapsed. The mother died," she says.

When the child arrived on the USNS Comfort, Marjorie saw that the young child was also suffering from malnutrition, which, according to many physicians who treat children on the hospital ship, is common in Haiti. "We fed him for two weeks and finally could send him home with his aunt. He actually looked like a real baby when he left," Marjorie says.

According to UNICEF, Haiti has the Western Hemisphere's highest birth rate, highest child and maternal mortality rates and highest malnutrition rate. Forty-seven percent of the tiny Caribbean country's population of nine million is under age 18.

"Then there is Dave," the pediatrician continues "he was buried in the rubble for three days."

While being transferred to the Comfort, the 7-year-old boy told one of the translators that he had the telephone number of his father on him.

"We called the number and reached his father and brought him to the ship," Marjorie says. "Before the father was brought to see his son I talked to him and showed him the photographs we had taken of his son's injuries. We tried to prepare the father since Dave was badly injured," she says. "But he didn't pay much attention. He was so happy his son was still alive."

Dave lost his right arm and right leg during the earthquake. His nose was almost entirely ripped off his face. The boy also suffered from additional head injuries. Today his condition has greatly improved and his nose has been gradually reconstructed.

"Dave is an example of what will be needed most in Haiti for the next months to come," Marjorie says, "which is prosthetics, many, many of them."

Since the earthquake, more than 4,000 amputees have been counted in Haiti.

"Haiti also needs clean water, sanitation, housing, education," says Marjorie. "The average life expectancy in Haiti is 44. I hope the international relief effort is not fading. It will take years to rebuild this country and make it a healthy nation."

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Story and photos by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist Astrid Riecken

Volunteer Nora Sheehan Providing Hands-On Care in Haiti

Nora Sheehan, 24, is a nurse who works for the adult medical unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Three weeks ago she signed up as a Project HOPE volunteer on the USNS Comfort to help the victims of the earthquake that struck Haiti four weeks ago.

It is not her first trip to Haiti. In 2009 Nora went to the tiny Caribbean nation to volunteer as a nurse in one of the mobile clinics not knowing that very soon she would return to help the Haitian people again.

"Haitians are beautiful people," she says "They deserve every ounce of care."

Nora works in the adult medical unit. Every day she takes care of 8 to 12 patients, more than twice as much as back home. "I often wonder why I am not as affected by all the despair around me as I thought I would be," she says. "Maybe it's because we work so hard, 12 hours, and then basically just go straight to bed. There simply is no time to fully comprehend what is happening."

Nora has realized that even though she does not speak Creole she feels very connected with most of her patients. "Not being able to talk to one another creates an opportunity to connect on a very human level," she says. "I think I touch my patients much more often here than I usually do back home in Boston. I rub their backs, hold their hands. It's a different way of care taking."

Still there are countless stories to tell, every one of her patients has a story and most of them are hard to listen to she says.

"One of my patients is a 27-year-old woman who lost her seven siblings and her parents during the earthquake," Nora says. "She survived, but her L1 vertebra was broken and she might be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life."

This young woman, Nora found out, loves music and she loves to sing. "I share my iPod with her and she holds it in her hands all day and smiles at me when I walk by."

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Story and photos by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist Astrid Riecken

"Angel Boat"

Project HOPE volunteer, Dr. Jose Irazuzta recounts an emotional day at Killick Point, Haiti.

After 7 straight working days, I took a break and went ashore to Killick Point. Killick Point is a small enclave that the Haitian Coast Guard is now sharing with a group from Colombia that had set up a 20 bed hospital, a United Nations deposit of vehicles, and a U.S. clinic. A lot of the activity there was centered on the movement of supplies for the USNS Comfort.

There is a short dock where crates and water bottles were being moved, a few vans were waiting to be loaded and a busy lieutenant acting as “traffic controller” was directing people and machines in and out. This business of having fresh water consumes a lot of resources.

Later on, two of the top brass from the Navy’s USNS Comfort and USS Gunston Hall arrived in separate boats with a small entourage of photographers and people “playing host” and showing the place. The top brass seemed very interested in a particular tent, it was clearly set aside, and there was no movement of people in or out. I thought that it may have had an air conditioner and refreshments; it was really hot and humid.

Shortly after the entourage went in, a soldier came out of the tent in a hurry and went back in bringing only one chair...that was odd, there were 2 “big wigs.” In the mean time a scuff boat, white with a red cross, from the Comfort was getting closer. Curiously it was not loaded with people or boxes as all previous ones. It was steaming hot and the lieutenant, in an undershirt like everyone else, started giving orders to rapidly clear the dock. As the top brass came out of the tent, all loading and unloading ceased. In the mean time another group was hurriedly bringing a large, white, polygonal wooden box into “the tent” that had just been inspected by the “top brass.” Time stood still.

“What is going on?” I asked. They told me an “Angel boat” is arriving.

Four marines, in dress blues, started unloading a stretcher from the boat. It was a light load, but they seemed to be handling something extremely fragile with a deliberate slowness. It was the remains of a child that had died on the Comfort despite all efforts.

These marines were paying full respect to an unknown child. A mother was “being handled with care” while accompanied by military personnel. The tent needed only a single chair for the mother, the rest were “standing up” for her.

Read more from Dr. Jose Irazuzta

Photos by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist, Astrid Riecken.

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A Pediatrician and Mother, Dr. Wu Gives Her All to Help the Children of Haiti

Project HOPE volunteer Dr. Betty Wu has tears in her eyes while talking about one of her patients she couldn't save. "It was a six-year-old girl, severely injured during the earthquake. She came too late to us," she says. The girl was admitted to the USNS Comfort only a few days ago and died Wednesday night. "We tried everything, everything."

Dr. Wu has volunteered before, many times, including in Haiti. The 39-year-old pediatric emergency physician from Children's Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis has seen much as a volunteer--the catastrophic 2004 Tsunami and the 2010 Haitian earthquake are just two of the natural disasters where Dr. Wu has volunteered her medical expertise to help. Still, there is much sadness in her voice when she speaks about this one young patient.

"What was especially tragic about this case is that the parents were not brought on board," she says. "Usually at least one parent accompanies the child to the Comfort, but the transferring hospital only brought the child. The Navy staff made sure to bring the dad on board the next day. I met him to tell him personally that his daughter was cared for."

Dr. Wu explains how important it is to have the parents nearby when a medical team tries to save their child's life Studies have shown, she says, that it is very beneficial for parents if they can watch how hard doctors and nurses work for the survival of a patient.

Dr. Wu takes care of incoming patients, especially the children, in the causalities and receiving unit of the USNS Comfort. Once the patients are admitted she follows up with them in the pediatric ward to make sure their treatment goes well.

After her 12-hour shifts she often spends a few moments online to send emails to her husband, a pilot for the Minnesota National Guard, or to watch a little video sent from home showing her two-year-old daughter.

"It was a little bit more difficult this time to sign up to volunteer because I had to leave her," she says.


This morning the parents of the young girl that died on the USNS Comfort waited at Killick Point, the Haitian Coast Guard headquarters in Port-au Prince, that was before the earthquake struck Haiti. Today, Killick Point is a crowded place with tents set up between buildings, some of them completely destroyed during the quake, others still standing. It is filled with international aid workers and military personnel from around the world.


Killick Point is a receiving place for patients, some of them are transferred from here to the USNS Comfort, others brought back from the ship.

In the middle of all of this the mother and father of the young girl wait for their daughter to arrive. Next to them on the ground is a small white coffin, on it a small red cross. Within an hour the body of their young child arrives and soon the family has left.

Check back tomorrow for Dr. Jose Irazuzta's observations of Killick Point.

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Story and photos by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist Astrid Riecken

Caring for Haiti's Youngest Earthquake Survivors

Project HOPE Volunteers at Work

HOPE volunteer nurse, Meri Clare cares for an infant in the Intensive Care Unit onboard the USNS Comfort off the coast of Haiti.

Project HOPE volunteer Marty Henderson comforts a baby in his care onboard the USNS Comfort off the coast of Haiti.

One of the many infants being cared for by Project HOPE volunteers working off the coast of Haiti onboard the USNS Comfort.

Project HOPE volunteer nurse Aimee Lyons instructs a mother on how to care for her baby after he leaves the Intensive Care Unit on the Comfort.

Thanks to the close co-operation between the U.S. Navy and the Haitian Ministry of Health, Antonio Jeanite is finally reunited with his three-month-old daughter Christ Yarah Jeanite. Father and daughter were separated shortly after the earthquake. Christ Yarah was admitted to the USNS Comfort for treatment. All patients treated on the USNS Comfort are accounted. A list of all names is regularly submitted to the Haitian Ministry of Health which distributes the list to the public.

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Photos by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist Astrid Riecken

HOPE Volunteer Struggles to Find Long-Term Care for Injured Haitians

"What I worry about the most is that they won't get the care they need after they leave the ship," says Project HOPE volunteer Carma Erickson-Hurt with tears in her eyes. The 43-year-old nurse from North Bend, Oregon, talks about the patients she cares for on the USNS Comfort, about 200 of them, who have been treated on this hospital ship and are about to be discharged.

That's where Carma's work begins, finding them the proper medical facility that will take care of the long-term therapies many of them need.

"I am just not sure whether there are enough hospitals and medical centers equipped to address all the special needs of the patients. Many of them are paralyzed, lost a limb or two, are blind or deaf, where are they going to get the treatment they need," she asks.

"Many of my patients also told me they fear to be abandoned by their communities after losing a limb. It's a different culture but I think it will change. So many Haitians lost an arm or a leg or even both," the wife of a retired U.S. Navy master chief says.

Carma, who teaches health assessment, classes at the Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, is volunteering as the Chief Nursing Officer for Project HOPE. Three years ago she retired from the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps after serving for 20 years.

"When the earthquake in Haiti happened I went immediately to Project HOPE's Web site to find out how to sign up as a volunteer," she says. "When I was still active in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps I helped Project HOPE with the logistics on the USNS Mercy. I knew I could help Project HOPE to get settled in while arriving on the USNS Comfort."

Despite all the challenges, physical and emotional, Carma shows no signs of resignation. "Most of my patients are incredibly thankful for what we do here for them. Many told me that they were praying to get on board, that they knew they would be safe once they have arrived on the Comfort."

"This morning one of our patients, an elderly woman I discharged, would rest her hand on my cheek for a moment, thanking me and saying 'you are my daughter'," she says.

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Story and photo by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist Astrid Riecken

Life and Death in the ICU

"Hi there, I am Lisa," says Project HOPE volunteer Lisa Boatright to a patient who slowly awakes from surgery in the intensive care unit on the USNS Comfort. U.S. Navy nurse Megan Day stands by, monitoring carefully vital signs of the patient who finally begins to open her eyes.

Lisa's patient is a 36-year-old woman whose left leg was just amputated in one of the operation rooms on the Comfort. "There was no other treatment left to save her life," says Lisa. "For the last two weeks she refused an amputation causing a sepsis to develop."

The 31-year-old nurse from Summit Medical Center in Frisco, Colorado, says she understands that some patients disagree with the doctors’ recommendations to amputate. "Many of them rarely understand what a sepsis is and what it means to their health. They don't always trust us either," she explains.

It's a week since Lisa arrived on the hospital ship. From day one she has worked 12-hour-shifts from 6am to 6pm in the ICU, seven days a week. "When I first came into the unit one of the Navy nurses walked straight at me and hugged me. She was just happy to realize they were getting some help."

Over the last week Lisa has seen much devastation, severe injuries from head traumas to open fractures on legs and limbs. Three weeks after the earthquake the situation in the ICU has not much changed much. The patients keep coming in.

A mother of an 8-year-old boy who was admitted the day before after being severely injured during a car accident, rests her hand on her son's forehead while praying.

Next to her a Haitian mother, with the help of a nurse, cares for her baby. In another bed a young girl sits up, her face badly injured and swollen, her tiny arms and hands hidden in bandages.

"A few days ago we discharged a patient, a man in his 50's, a local minister, whose hip replacement was infected and had spread out into his femur," Lisa says. "The surgeon had to remove the entire femur. What was left was an open leg without a femur. I have never seen such a case. It took four nurses to change the dressing. The good news is he has been flown to Miami where he will receive a new bone."

When asked what the biggest challenge is for her, she answers, "It's the people with brain injuries who I worry about the most."

"It's very expensive to care for them and I am not sure whether there are enough hospitals that can provide the care they need."

Lisa tries to stay upbeat. It's tough occasionally though, especially when she needs a short break and wants to lie down for a moment. "I am hot-wracking, which means I have to share my bed with another nurse. When I work my bed is used by the other nurse," she says.

"Whenever I can I spend some time outside on deck to get some fresh air and a change of scenery," she says. "This helps a lot."

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Story and photos by HOPE volunteer and photojournalist Astrid Riecken

HOPE Volunteer Chick Fitts Journals from Haiti

Nurse Charles "Chick" Fitts from Community Medical Center in Missoula, Montana is currently volunteering for Project HOPE, caring for injured Haitians being treated onboard the USNS Comfort. Here are a few excerpts from his journal.

January 26-- Long day's trip across country to Jacksonville, Florida Naval Air Station, achy from half a dozen immunizations piled on after about 4 hours notice to join the Project HOPE volunteer nursing contingent on the USNS Comfort off the coast of Haiti. It took a whole community to get one volunteer off from Missoula. My primary physician Rebecca Hoover had done all my paperwork, and contacted three different agencies to arrange medications and immunizations, all before she saw her first patient, all on email notice Monday morning. Costco and Community Medical Center pharmacies and the Public Health Service had me immunized and supplied by midday. My employer and several offices quickly accommodated my changed plans. I was on a plane Monday evening, and arrived at Jacksonville NAS by evening Tuesday.

January 27-- Old folks will remember the Project HOPE hospital ship, SS HOPE, an early health care NGO that began doing world tours in 1958. The original vessel was scrapped in 1974, and Project HOPE was strictly a land-based international operation until 2004, when it supplemented the Navy health care staff aboard the Mercy during the tsunami relief work.

The Comfort is a converted supertanker, 1000 feet long, 6 stories high, up to a 1000 hospital beds. We're told it is currently full to capacity, a first. There are 33 of us. Docs, nurses and techs, recruited through Project HOPE, to supplement the Navy health care staff. There are several veterans of prior volunteer relief work on the Mercy or the Comfort. Several of the nurses are experienced traveling nurses. The boss of this contingent was Chief Nursing Officer aboard the Mercy during the Tsunami relief, now "retired." Among the professionals are one Venezuelan and two Haitians. The pediatric ER doc is having bad separation pangs from her 2 year-old.

January 29-- ...By the end of the day we finally had berthing assignments, although puzzling them out was a challenge, since it's all unfamiliar. The Comfort was never conceived as a tertiary hospital for disaster relief, so it is not really laid out for the intense bed and manpower requirements of this huge scale. They are to having to choose between room for patients and for caregivers -- paradigm of a rock and a hard place. Almost everyone needs surgery, predominantly orthopedic (the chief building material is, or was, concrete). The many operating rooms on board could spend the next four days solely on first time surgeries for those already on board, and then they would have to catch up with the repeat cleanup procedures. This would require ignoring the large number of injuries that require procedures now only available on the Comfort. More than two weeks after the earthquake it is still a daunting

January 30 --I've been slow on this update in part 'cause I was busy learning how to work on 12 off 12 and get enough sleep in a three high stack of bunks and get to meals and shower and .... so on. The bigger reason is that it's time for me to talk about the Haitian people we are caring for, and it's difficult. I've decided I can't do it all of a piece, so here it comes, or more probably starts, in pieces.

We recovered over 50 surgeries today, on the daylight 12. I saw my first grey haired patient today. That is substantially less than 1%. Almost all the injuries are orthopedic, and crush injuries as well. It appears that the elderly simply did not have the reserves to survive. A huge portion of the patients are pre-adolescents, usually unaccompanied. Few are over 40. It has occurred to me to wonder, without possessing anything like data (as a nurse, I don't see those that are uninjured, those that have been adequately treated by the multitude of international organizations, governmental and NGO, working in and around Port-au-Prince), whether the city will be seen to have lost a generation.

Something approaching half of the surgery patients we see, children and adults, pretty clearly are experiencing significant Post-traumatic stress disorder, an assessment supported by the unfortunately great experience of the large and very able contingent of Bethesda Naval Hospital nurses on board. It is difficult to imagine what events have led to the inconsolable tears and distant visions we care for.



Check back for more from HOPE Volunteer Chick Fitts.

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Home from Haiti, Dr. Larry Ronan Recounts His Volunteer Experience

I returned from two weeks aboard the USNS COMFORT as a Project HOPE volunteer as part of Operation United Relief - Haiti. Dr. Harold Timboe, Project Hope's Chief Medical Officer for this deployment, and I boarded the ship on January 16th. My initial plan was to disembark in Miami in 3 days to meet our volunteers. However, the fleet ordered the COMFORT to steam directly to Haiti, no stops, so my journey began.

We sailed from Baltimore to Port-au-Prince in four days. This allowed us time to prepare the hospital ship and plan our operations.

When we arrived in Haiti, I joined the Navy's Rapid Assessment Team (RAT Team). Everyday a Navy surgeon, a security detail, a communications team and I would take a Black Hawk helicopter into different parts of Port-au-Prince to evaluate and evacuate patients to the COMFORT.

The situation on the ground was chaotic: thousands scrambling to secure food and water. Sixty percent of the city in rubble. Major institutions - the presidential palace, national cathedral, the hospitals, banks and business buildings - in ruins. People were camped in any open area using plastic for shelter. No electricity or sanitation. In a city of 4 million people no one slept inside fearful of further earthquakes.

We spent a number of days at University Hospital where 1500 patients overwhelmed a 400 bed facility. Many patients had sustained crush injuries with open femur, pelvis and spine fractures. Some were already paralyzed. Most were badly infected or had gangrene. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne served as the emergency ambulance crew transporting patients to our helicopters in humvees and trucks.

On board the COMFORT the scene was impressive. Within 48 hours of sailing, the sailors had opened up from plastic wrap and boxes 600 beds and 12 operating rooms. Before we anchored in Haiti the COMFORT was already taking on patients. When I left two weeks later they were operating 24/7 and had over 700 patients.

I met our first set of volunteers at the airport (where half spent the night as guests of the 82nd Airborne) and saw them off on the helos to the ship. I'm told they hit the ground running taking on clinical shifts immediately the next day. Their arrival was much much anticipated by the Navy's nurses and doctors exhausted from the around the clock schedule.

On my return I had the opportunity to attend the UN "cluster" meetings which are the organizational focus for all NGO's dealing with health, food, water and shelter. I was proud to wear my Project HOPE T-shirt in these meetings. As with prior disasters Katrina and tsunami we are front and center.

I'm now back at Massachusetts General Hospital hoping to organize more volunteers to join up with Project Hope for this important mission.


--Dr. Larry Ronan Massachusetts General Hospital

Photos by HOPE Volunteer and photojournalist, Astrid Riecken

Caring for the Youngest Earthquake Survivors

Dr. Jose Irazuzta practices pediatric critical care medicine and pediatrics in Jacksonville, Florida. He joined the Project HOPE volunteer staff onboard the USNS Comfort on January 27th to care for children injured in the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. Read his powerful story.

At times it is surreal. The Comfort is a massive structure that is 8-10 stories in height and 830 feet long with 1000 hospital beds and 11 operating rooms. It can even desalinize water and make oxygen.

The ship is now stationed 2 miles off the coast of Haiti, surrounded by other ships, speed boats with supplies, patrols, etc. With a crew of 1,200, plus patients and their families, we are close to 2,500 souls onboard.

If not for the big red axes on the walls, latches on every door cabinet and floor anchors where beds and equipment are secured while sailing, it is easy to believe that you are working in a very large, crowded, city hospital.

People are working at less than 3-feet from each other. The halls are narrow with constant traffic.

A friend warned me, “One gets lost many times the first few days.” But it is not a problem. If you just ask one of the crew walking by, they stop, say “follow me Sir,” and take you to your destination without chit-chat and then get right back to their business.

The Intensive Care Unit(ICU) is staffed with highly-skilled nurses, quick on their feet, multitasking and improvising with little talk. I have yet to hear a single complaint.

Helicopters fly continuously during daylight, moving patients or restocking the ship. Sometimes we are short on supplies, like gloves for a few shifts... we use the ones from the people in the kitchen.

At 6 a.m. the loud speakers blast: “Reveille! Reveille! All hands heave out and trice up,” followed by loud whistles.

I usually get to the last meal of the day when the “Chow Room” reopens at 11p.m. Because there are no windows on the ship, I try to get to the upper deck at night. Finally when I pull the curtains on the little, lower bunk (berthing), the only private place you have on the whole ship, even the hard mattress feels like heaven.

We are currently operating 3 ICUs with 20 or more pediatric patients. When we send one child out another is flown in from a hospital inland. They do not fly at night. Occasionally we hear requests in the evenings for patients to be processed to come onboard the next day, but in the morning they never arrive and we wonder.

The stories are hard, severe brain injuries with contaminated open fractures, sepsis, amputations, renal failures and the worse... infants found after the earthquake without parents or neighbors, malnourished with secondary infections. The sailors take turns when off duty holding them in their arms while the little ones latch to them like leeches.

The crew, all races, sexes, shapes and orientation are “pure- of- heart” and self- disciplined. they are learning at least one Creole word every day and are polite but firm when bringing to your attention that you broke a rule...”scrubs are not allowed on the deck Sir.” I have heard that the sailors maybe “hot racking” (a bunk is used by people on different shifts) to make room for people from Haiti.....nobody makes a big fuss about it, they just do it.

In Haiti, grandmothers often take care of several children while their parents work in other towns. One of them was taking care of 2 infants when the ceiling fell down during the earthquake. She was only able to pull one child alive from the ruble. The mother arrived three days later for the funeral of her son....yet he was still alive with a large bump on his head. After 2 weeks he started vomiting. Some medical personnel saw the child and found a large skull fracture with his brain protruding from it, but covered with skin. He was flown to us, the neurosurgeons, and the rest did their part ...the rest is a happy ending.

Women under stress are delivering their babies too early. We treated a premature infant that had necrotizing enterocolitis, a gastrointestinal disease that affects premature infants. We could not feed the baby, his bowels just distended. There is no form of total parenteral nutrition (intravenous feeding) to support a child that will need it for several years in addition to 3-4 delicate surgeries in this part of the world. Still, the mother begged us to try anything. We understood. With no house left and the rest of her family dead, this child was the only remainder of a previous life. He died despite all our efforts. With the nurses and the sailors, we just surrounded the mother to cry off her pain.

There are 1,000 sailors, a bunch of Navy medical personnel, 32 Project HOPE volunteers as well as Red Cross volunteers on the Comfort. The reality is that we cannot notice the difference anymore. We are all on the same boat for the same reason.

-Jose Irazuzta, MD

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