Vermont Volunteers in Post-Quake Haiti
By Margaret Michniewicz
The dark, pouring rain on a cold March night in Vermont was a stark contrast for Lois Farnham and Holly Puterbaugh, just four days after returning from two weeks in a sun-drenched, dusty and oppressively hot post-quake Haiti.
The retired Burlington couple was among the approximately 50 people gathered in the meeting space of the Vermont Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals (VFNHP). The Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC) nurses’ union independently organized efforts to send volunteer medical personnel and supplies to the disaster zone from Vermont. Though Farnham is a nurse by profession, neither she nor Puterbaugh are members of the union. Still, they – and many others – participated in the VFNHP-coordinated humanitarian mission, including paying for their own roundtrip airfare. While the need for healthcare professionals in Haiti is obviously profound, those without a medical degree can still help: Puterbaugh, a retired UVM math professor, spent her time gathering basic information of people arriving at the clinic.
Some individuals attending the meeting were preparing to leave, either early the following morning or later in April. Teams have been embarking each Wednesday on an ongoing basis for two-week intervals, paced so that new arrivals will overlap with those who’ve been in Port-au-Prince for at least a week and know the ropes. At this Monday night meeting, veterans like Farnham and Puterbaugh gave advice and tips to those on the way to Haiti for the first time.
The following evening, both women shared some of the experiences they encountered during their late March trip with Vermont Woman.
One of the most enduring images for them remains the piles of rubble, not yet cleared away – and, Farnham notes soberly, one knows in passing that many unrecovered bodies remain underneath.
After arriving, volunteers were transported by flatbed truck to various temporary clinics set up in tents throughout Port-au-Prince and the immediate area. They worked an average of 12-hour days in these “tent cities” whose port-o-lets are a marked improvement over previous conditions, according to Puterbaugh. Potable drinking water, however, remains scarce, as does consistent electricity and power (a condition that pre-dated the quake).
Much of the medical work in late March was a lot of cast removals, as their trip fell within six-to-eight weeks following the quake. Nonetheless, there was a steady flow of people coming to the clinics to seek medical assistance for the first time. Farnham and Puterbaugh recall a 20-year-old woman who was transported to the clinic by her sister and brother-in-law by wheelbarrow. During the quake, a wall had fallen on her, and since then she had not been able to stand on one of her legs. “All the muscle had atrophied,” Farnham says, describing the cardboard splint that was tied onto the woman’s thigh with rags – with clean cloth and flowers attached underneath.
“This was her first encounter with traditional medicine,” she notes. Puterbaugh observes of the people they helped, “You didn’t have a [single] patient – you were usually treating an entire family at a time.” Two young teenage boys were the exception to this, however. Coming to the clinic for treatment of minor injuries, “They had become orphaned in the quake,” Puterbaugh says, describing the situation of the many children who’ve lost their entire families, and essentially have nowhere to go once they’ve been treated at the clinic.
“One thing you don’t ask,” states Farnham, “is ‘have you eaten today?’ You need to ask ‘what have you eaten today?’” The reason being, it’s not uncommon to find that what people have consumed is dirt, being that desperate to at least fill their stomachs with something.
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