Update from CRUDEM’s Hospital Sacre Coeur in Haiti:

We are a major player in the rescue effort not only because of our expanded facilities, numerous skilled volunteers and strong supportive local community but because we seem to be the first hospital in the country with a system in place for rehabilitation of patients. Vision of Hope, a mission 3 miles from Hospital Sacre Coeur has opened their doors to take our discharged patients (50 so far) and care of them until they are ready to return to their families. Their doctors come to Hospital Sacre Coeur during the day and so are aware of the needs of each patient when they transfer them to the other site. This gives us space to take additional critical surgical cases. We currently have 70 medical volunteers from the U.S. working round the clock,we are so grateful for their selflessness and dedication. We are still willing to take 100 more patients initially and more as rehabiliation continues.

Hospital Sacre Coeur is now posted on the blog of General Fraser of the Southern Command.

Here is a comment from Dr. Steve Fletcher, K.M. who just returned to New Jersey.

Well we finally made it back yesterday on a private jet owned by IWorks who has apparently donated their entire fleet of two jets and three helicopters to Haitian humanitarian efforts . . . We are exhausted and emotionally drained. There isn’t one of us who didn’t breakdown at least once during the week. My guys did everything from general surgery to orthopedics. Dr. Lovejoy’s team of orthopedists arrived on Monday and we rapidly expanded the work and the hospital. Rick Pitera, our anesthesiologist and K.M. to be in November was amazing. On his suggestion we converted the little delivery room into a fully functioning operating room but without OR lights (these are coming).
We took the three examining rooms across the hall from the OR and converted them into procedure rooms complete with oxygen and now monitors so we can give conscious sedation and do wound washouts, casting and debridements. The waiting room is now a pre-op area. The patients who need x-ray are now transported up the road next to the cemetery through the back gate so they no longer go through the hospital. Post op patients are sent across the street to the school that has now become a temporary hospital. One side is post op and the other ,on the left as you enter the grounds, is where all new patients are evaluated and prioritized for x-ray and surgery.
Phillips donated all new state of the art monitors for all of the rooms and the recovery room and a few for across the street at the school which we now call “Hotel Milot” ( I think that was Rick’s idea). None of us really wanted to leave but it was time. There are so many people doing great work that it really blows your mind. For our part we hope we helped lay the ground work for great things to come for Sacre Coeur and Milot. Be well and God bless.

— Joan Frawley Desmond is a Catholic journalist and member of the Order of Malta that supports the Hospital Sacre Coeur.