CPO's day

Mat and I just got back from a very busy day treating patients (finally) and interviews with the German press. It was an interesting day. We started out at a hospital called Espoir (french). Six or so prosthetic pts. that were there, were either being taken care of at another organization called Handicap International or going to be seen there. There was one upper extremity patient that was not being seen there, b/c they are prioritizing lower extremity pts. first, but we did not have the components neccessary to make her a Prosthesis...very frustrating. We did provide some shrinkers to those other patients for ease of donning. We had to leave the hospital and come back with supplies, when we came back there were some German reporters there who wanted to find out about the state of the crisis. We did our best to sum up the story form the little exposure we had. They were satisfied and took plenty of notes.

We also got to speak, at length with the Prosthetist that is in charge of this O&P facility here at HHH. We got a glimpse of the layout of the new lab being built. We also got the skinny on all of the political and territorial elements that are making the rehab endevour here, in Haiti, very difficult. The press is reporting anywhere between 15 and 100 thousand amputees after the earthquake. This prosthetist, who was here long before the earthquake, went to the different hospital sites and counted. His assessment is only 2 thousand! A huge disscrepancy.

Tomorrow we are going with this CPO to, Medishare, the hospital that we went to the first day, because he has an "in" there...maybe we can help?? If anything we can really asses the situation for any O&P people that will come after us.