Why does Haiti needs nurses? Posted on http://news.nurse.com/article/20100308/NATIONAL02/103080064/-1/frontpage

Scott Plantz, MD, FAAEM, is a member of Gannett Healthcare Group, parent company of Nurse.com. He is senior vice president of continuing education for GHG’s nursing certification preparation company, Pearls Review. Plantz volunteered at a hospital in Haiti Feb. 19-23.

After 20 years working in inner-city EDs, I thought I had seen it all — until I arrived in Haiti. Late last month I traveled to the earthquake-ravaged country as a volunteer physician with a team of nurses and other healthcare professionals. We worked through the relief organization Project Medishare at the Global Institute hospital established by the University of Miami just 200 yards from the Port-au-Prince airport runway.

I felt I had arrived in some version of hell. The med/surg ward, housed in a tent, took my breath away with row after row of patients in cots set 12 inches from the floor. I teamed up with Max Varona, RN, an emergency nurse from Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., in a 10-bed ED with dirt floors, no privacy curtains and just one trauma bay. And this is the best organized, best manned and best stocked hospital in Haiti.

I saw end-stage clinical findings rarely seen in the U.S. Malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid and parasitic diseases were common. I also witnessed my share of heartbreak: the father who walked 20 miles to reach the ED with his brain-injured child on his back, for example, or the man, paralyzed from the chest down, who arrived with both of his legs rotting. You can read nurses’ moving firsthand accounts of their care of Haitian patients like these at Nurse.com/Haiti.

Because the U.S. doctors and nurses arriving in Haiti since the earthquake are all volunteers, the staffing mix at a hospital like the Global Institute’s is patchy at best. On any given day, one nursing specialty might be oversupplied, while on another there could be pockets of missing expertise .

Yes, nurses are needed in Haiti to respond to continuing post-quake healthcare concerns, but as the country begins a long, slow healing process, the need for patient education — and the RNs to provide it — will grow. A large percentage of the population is under the age of 18, and many young parents have limited understanding of how to care for their injured children. Limited, as well, is the population’s knowledge of the importance of clean water, sterile technique and proper wound care. Nursing expertise, particularly in patient teaching, could play a crucial role in the survival of the Haitian people.

In Haiti, I was fortunate to have worked with some of the most dedicated nursing professionals I have ever known. I plan to return there soon and hope to once again have that privilege.