Volunteers Continue to Help with Cholera Outbreak in Haiti

The volunteer nurses who have traveled to Haiti with Project HOPE are settling into their new routines nicely here at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer. Five arrived Tuesday evening: Emily Ferguson, Joyce Barkin, Alysia Monaco, Nora Sheehan, and Jane Caporiccio. Jane's sister, Jill Caporiccio, is already here and lending her nursing skills where needed on top of helping to coordinate Project HOPE's activities in Deschapelles.

As the number of cholera cases coming into the hospital has stabilized and routines established to handle them, some of the nurses are applying their skills elsewhere. Jane and Emily have been lending a helping hand in the busy emergency department, treating everything from infections to motorbike accidents, while Joyce tapped her experience as a scrub nurse to assist surgeons in the operating room today. It's amazing to see how hard these women work, the care with which they do it, and the way they constantly keep busy as if they themselves needed to keep moving in order to stay alive. They've divided themselves into two shifts, staffing the hospital from 7am until 11pm, and with another week and a half left in their mission, it seems as if they're just getting warmed up.

Photos and story by HOPE's correspondent on the ground, Brendan Hoffman.

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