Dr. Jennifer Liquido helps Haiti Victims
06/17/2010


Dr. Jennifer Liquido from Smyrna Medical Associates served with the Delaware Medical Relief Team in Jacmel, Haiti Feb. 21-28, helping victims injured in the January earthquake. Last week, she took the time to answer several questions about her visit from the Sun-Times.

Q: Why did you want to go to Haiti?
A: I wanted to help in my own way after hearing the news coverage of the devastation in the area and the call for health care providers.

Q: What were the conditions like? What type of medical facilities and medical supplies did you have to work with?
A: I was lucky enough to have a room with a bed. There were four members of the team who had rooms and the rest slept in tents. We all shared bathrooms. There were several aftershocks – all occurred at night during that week. The most severe one was a 4.7 magnitude which woke us up and made us congregate outside at about 1 in the morning. We worked in a makeshift clinic that the second Delaware team established. This was a bare, unfinished building beside the inn where some of us were staying. The other half of the group established an outpatient clinic outside of St. Michel Hospital. This was literally on the parking lot of the hospital. We put up tarp covers to protect us and the waiting patients from the harsh sun. We had to carry all of our daily supplies in plastic bins, set them up in the every morning and pack them all up again at the end of the day. We brought most of the supplies we thought we would need including medications. We did not have access to labs.

Q: Any estimate on the number of patients you helped?
A: I personally saw more than 200 patients.

Q: What were the most common problems the patients had?
A: There are still a lot of people living in tent cities. As a consequence, we saw a number of patients suffering from being in confined quarters with lack of sanitation and exposure to outside environment. These included children with gastroenteritis, pneumonia, wheezing, and upper respiratory infections. Aside from these, the prevalent medical problems in their area are exacerbated such as malaria and scabies.

Q: What was the most uplifting or rewarding part of the experience?
A: Receiving a wide smile and “Merci” from the people we saw were enough to uplift our spirits everyday we were there. We saw people from other towns who made the trip to Jacmel in order to consult a doctor. Most of the patients were dressed in their Sunday best – that signified how important the visiting the doctor was to them.

Q: What was the most difficult or challenging part?
A: Not being able to do enough for people with chronic cases. For example, I saw a 10-year-old girl who had been having seizures daily for the past five years. She has had occasional medical care and medications in the past. We were able to give her medicine for several months but we cannot provide nor arrange for follow-up and long-term care. One day I also helped transport some babies to the field hospital in Port-au-Prince and was able to see the destruction from the helicopter ride. This made me realize that it will take a very long time for a lot of people to even get out of the tent cities and go back to their lives before the earthquake.

Q: From what you saw, what do the people in Haiti need the most?
A: The problem in Haiti is deeply-grounded in the lack of facilities to satisfy their basic needs. This was compounded by the devastation brought by the earthquake. Right now, they would need a lot of help in building their infrastructures and in satisfying their basic needs like food and clean water.

Q: Did going there make you appreciate conditions here more? Why?
A: Yes. The easy access to fulfillment of basic needs alone is something to be thankful for: shelter, clean, water, food. Medically, the provision for preventive care is something to be thankful for. Copyright 2010 Smyrna/Clayton Sun-Times. Some rights reserved

Copyright 2010 Smyrna/Clayton Sun-Times. Some rights reserved


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