Haiti Hospital: 500 Patients in an 80 Bed Facility

ABC News Senior Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser reports from Port au Prince, Haiti: 8:30AM On the road to Hospital Albert Schweitzer, 50 miles and 3 hours north of Port au Prince. I want to see what is happening at one of the closest full-service hospitals to the city. Racing thru traffic. More than a dozen water tanker trucks so far. That is a new and promising sign. Traffic is incredibly bad. Fruit for sale by the side of the road.  People, people walking everywhere. Bridge is blocked. Not safe. Need to try another route. Found bridge and now barreling down ruddy roads. Good news is the speedometer is broken, otherwise I'd be even more nervous. Major deforestation on the both sides. Little development. Nearing site of old Club Med. Closed for more than a decade.

3PM On the way back to Port au Prince. Hospital Albert Schweitzer incredible. 500 patients in an 80 bed facility. Patients have traveled here to get care they couldn't find in Port au Prince. Head trauma, multiple fractures, infected wounds. 20-30 orthopedic surgeries since sunday. Staff exhausted.  Running out of pain medicine and antibiotics. I ask the head pediatrician about the regular patients: children with malnutrition, pneumonia, typhoid fever. She doesn't know where they are. Travel is difficult and there is little room for anything but trauma.
 
Ian Rawson, a gentle soul who runs the hospital, feels the suffering of the Haitian people deeply. He was raised here and has worked for 50 years on HAS going back and forth to the US. His eyes tear up as I ask him about the past week. Due to decreased philanthropy he had laid off staff the day before the earthquake. When the quake hit, many came back. He doesn't know how he'll pay them but he'll find a way. One week after the quake there is a major mismatch between the needs of patients and the availability of supplies, facilities, and trained staff. So much of the success going forward will depend on logistics: getting medical supplies flowing, getting hospitals up and running, clearing the logjam of patients needing care, and figuring out where homeless people can go to recuperate.