Local surgeon back from Haiti, back at work
Dr. Albert Olszewski, a local orthopedic surgeon, returned to the Flathead Valley earlier this week after donating his time at King’s Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
He kept people informed of his Haiti experiences on a blog at www.flatheadortho.com.
His final blog entry includes photographs of himself with patients and several dramatic shots of destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince.
Olszewski’s mission began a week earlier with a struggle to find a flight into the country where he had volunteered to work with Hope Force International. His specialty is in demand to tend to broken and crushed bones as well as general medical work cleaning and treating wounds.
Although he came prepared to sleep on the ground and feed himself, Olszewski ended up staying in a dormitory with five other men.
Olszewski began working on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at King’s Hospital. As soon as he hit the ground, he began setting and casting fractures and cleaning deep wounds. He reported amputating a finger on his first day.
When he arrived, he found a staff of two orthopedic surgeons and nurses from Medical Teams International. But they left the next day for rural areas.
The surgeon took the news in good humor.
“So the good news is I am the Chief of Orthopedics and the Chief of Surgery in less than 24 hours,” he wrote. “The bad news is I have only myself to boss around.”
There was more sobering news. His support staff, along with two anesthesiologists, consisted of only a Haitian nurse who spoke no English and a student nurse who spoke poor English.
Before day’s end, he had treated an 8-year-old with an upper arm fracture, a 2-year-old with a broken lower leg and a 16-year old with a two-week-old thigh bone fracture. He also saw two babies with upper-leg fractures that were healing and a 3-year-old with an amputation of his right arm.
His days included many follow-ups with orthopedic patients treated by other surgeons.
Thursday again was a busy day of surgery and treatments including revising a right-arm amputation of a 2-year-old boy, clearing out the wound and upper arm fracture of a 62-year-old woman from earlier surgery and treating a 35-year-old man with thigh and lower leg fractures.
In addition, the ER clinic was busy with trauma surgery follow-ups, including cast changes and wound packing. He said he saw some improvement with lines of 20 to 30 patients waiting outside instead of 60 to 70 people in the first days.
Over and over during his stay, he heard from patients or their parents that their houses fell on them.
He was handicapped on Thursday when the Haitian nurse and student nurse didn’t show up.
Olszewski performed no surgery Friday because no anesthesia was available, but he treated many patients in the clinic, evaluating wounds and changing dressings.
He was able to use his contacts to get the 82nd Airborne Division to transport himself and a young girl with a thigh-bone fracture to a University of Miami medical operation. It was housed in a 40,000-square-foot circus-type tent at the Port-au-Prince airport.
Along the way, he noticed tent cities called Internally Displaced People Camps going up. One near the airport housed more people than live in Whitefish.
At the hospital, he found exhausted, stern-looking doctors, but Olszewski made a breakthrough by connecting with the director of orthopedics, a friend of his old partner and professor from his Air Force days. He delivered expensive dressings he had at King’s Hospital along with a cordless drill that really excited the people at the command center who had forgotten to bring theirs.
In his blog, Olszewski included his observations of the ruined city returning to normal faster than he expected as people adjust to their new reality. He described traffic jams and commerce along the streets with vendors selling fruit, bread, hot sandwiches, cell phones and clothing.
“Early this week, children were quiet and sedate,” he wrote. “Now they are laughing and playing in the streets.”
The surgeon related one sad conversation with a student of a destroyed university and no job prospects. The young man saw no way of finishing his education or any hope for his future.
As usual, Olszewski ended the blog entry asking for prayers but with an addition.
“Please pray for Haiti and especially for their young people — they need hope of a future.”
While driving in to perform rounds on Sunday, he noticed families walking on the roads in their brightly colored Sunday clothes.
“The clean and colorful clothing stands in stark contrast to the dusty, dirty, broken cityscape,” he wrote.
An orthopedic replacement team made a surprise entrance, so he took them on a tour and transferred service to them.
“I feel relieved, but also a sense of guilt that my time at King’s Hospital is coming to an end,” he wrote on Sunday.
He said the country needs more than just to recover to pre-earthquake state. Olszewski said people need to become self-sustaining for food, housing and jobs with a just wage.
He provided advice to others who feel a calling to help make a difference in the devastated country.
“If you wish to volunteer in Haiti, there are plenty of ways. They range from delivering food to helping in the orphanages. Search your heart and act upon what you find.”
Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.