Filed under: News, Profiles, Race and Civil Rights
For the earthquake-battered people of Haiti, the help they were about to receive from miles away couldn't have come at a better time.
Dr. Robert J. Gore, an attending physician at Brooklyn's Kings County Hospital, had just met with his hospital staff in late December to support his pet project of developing medical training and an improved health network for the people of northern Haiti.
Then the Jan. 12 earthquake hit, killing nearly a quarter of a million people.
"As soon as we heard the news, we knew we had to shift our focus a little," Gore said. "But there was no doubt we were going. We weren't set up to be a disaster-relief team, but we had some resources and some people willing to go down and help."
Gore and his team of EMEDEX International doctors recently returned from Haiti -- his fourth trip since the earthquake -- and now they are back in the business of providing long-term health solutions for residents of Haiti's northern Terrier Rouge region.
"Our major initiative is rescue, recover and rebuild Haiti," said Dr. Christina Bloem, EMEDEX International's director. "Through this program, we will elevate the quality of care provided by doctors, nurses and other first responders."
EMEDEX International is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the global promotion and advancement of emergency medicine, disaster management and public health. EMEDEX is affiliated with Kings County Hospital, as well as other U.S. emergency departments and hospitals around the world.
Part of helping Haitians prepare for their future is helping them deal with the dangers that confront them now, Gore said. One such fear is getting them better prepared for the next calamity that might occur.
For example, portions of the Terrier Rouge, which was largely untouched by the January earthquake, straddle an earthquake fault line, and flooding also looms as a major threat to the region.
"It is sad because, in many ways, it is a disaster waiting to happen," Gore said. "So we want to bring the training and skills to help Haitian people help Haitian people."
No one had to wait for a disaster on the morning of Jan. 13. It had already come in the form of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which ranked as the sixth deadliest in history.
It took three weeks to coordinate flights for the small team of EMEDEX health professionals going to the devastated island nation. Some medical professionals on Gore's team had to endure 36 hours in transit for what is routinely a four-hour plane ride from New York to Haiti.
Once in Port-au-Prince, the sights and sounds from the crushed capitol city stunned the Brooklyn native.
"Every other building crumbled," Gore said. "I had never seen anything like that before. People tried to get around the best they could. Selling fruit on the street or whatever they could do to just keep moving forward. That image stayed with me -- people just trying to keep moving forward."
But while providing emergency care in the earthquake's immediate aftermath, Gore saw an opportunity to lay the groundwork for his long-term goal of building an improved and sustainable medical infrastructure on the island.
"My interpreter, Pierre, was just a high school student, but by the time we left, he could provide us with critical information on a patient's status like a medical school student here," Gore said. "It dawned on us that he could possibly help train other people as well, and now [he] might have an interest in becoming a physician."
Gore's staff also helped develop a more effective triage system to provide better interventions to seriously injured people, which improved patient flow into medical facilities.
EMEDEX workers have developed a blueprint for a coordinated EMS system in the north and have taught basic life support and first aid classes through mock-disaster drills. Lessons in splinting, bleeding control and immobilizing the injured have been taken by scores of health care professionals, truck drivers and other residents there.
Gore said the fundraising efforts at Kings County and the SUNY Downstate Medical Center have provided the lifeblood for the EMEDEX Haitian outreach.
"We couldn't have done any of this without the help of doctors, medical students, nurses, emergency room technicians, clerks, teachers."
To find out more about EMEDEX or to contribute, please go here.