There are 10 in this hospital, some that will become amputees over the next few weeks.  Thousands more in PaP.

I have been here two days in st marc. I was working at the national hospital in PaP the days prior.

So many flocked to st marc since they didn't think they would get care in PaP.
 I see 140 or something patients a day, postoperative, preop, revisions. Every type of fracture, open, closed. Every bone from the humerus to femur. Many missed compartment syndromes from crush injuries that came in too late for fascitomies that would have saved function in their limbs.
Patients coming through the ED and this is when things have quieted down.
I change dressings, try to find new sick patients that are dispersed all over the building. it is challenging to keep track of all of them.
I am part of a team that is trying to take over from an outgoing team from mass general in Boston. a trauma surgeon, an ER doc; a bunch of nurses are leaving tomorrow.
 I have a Canadian team who speaks French and three awesome Creole speaking Boston nurses that are staying behind.

The Haitian staff who usually staffs the hospital is slowly coming back.

A country of amputees and those are the ones who escaped or just missed escaping  the concrete pouring down from the sky.

Jenine is 14,  smile as big as the moon. She had her house fall on her head.  She has a stump for a right leg. I change her dressing.

There is a positive fly sign.  If there are flies circling over a wound it is infected. There are many such wounds.

Luckily hers is clean.

The ones with the worst injuries that are alive are also likely to have had family members die since the structure they were in during the quake collapsed.   Wake up to a stump and a family who is dead.

Jenine and her father are the only survivors in her family. her mother and 4 siblings are dead.
As we get further out from the earthquake we will have to deal with so many chronic problems that take long term commitment.
in the coming weeks and years this country will be left to deal with an epidemic of paraplegics, sacral ulcers, crush injuries, amputees.
On top of that are those diseases that love to shadow many poor in almost any country... tb, malaria, and HIV filiriasis, diarrhea. Malnutrition one of the things that is so rough about this earthquake is that it is in itself a brain drain. It killed or maimed so many of the intellectuals in PaP. The government, the lawyers the doctors which make rebuilding that much harder
At st Marc there are young Haitians that volunteer as transport for patients to and from x-ray, wheeling them back and forth.

16 and 17 years old boys boisterous as hell. Popping a wheelie as a patient comes back to her bed, sending laughter across the large ward like a breeze that cleans the air as nearby patients crack a grin or smile.

One of the French nurses yesterday found one of these Haitian  boys in a corner crying.    A boy who had been wheeling patients all day, moving paraplegics energetically.
Between breaths all he could say to explain was
"I  just feel sad for my country"