![]() "She's saying hopefully when she gets well, she pray to God she will have an opportunity to learn something, that she will be able to earn a living for herself then she don't have to depend on nobody to really help her because that's why she's really hoping for."īy late afternoon, nobody had started to wean LeBrun from her oxygen. That afternoon, she gave me a huge smile and spoke hopefully about her future. She was only told that she would be transferred to the Haitian hospital. And she would be driven to a partially destroyed Haitian hospital where she'd been treated before, but which was known to lack oxygen. LeBrun's oxygen would be turned down slowly. Kadilak checked his decision with the head doctor. "Which essentially is a death sentence for this woman." So he made what he described as a difficult decision: to withdraw the oxygen from Nathalie LeBrun. Kadilak reasoned that the limited supply of oxygen would be better used if it were given to those who needed it only temporarily for instance, people who'd been injured in the quake and needed oxygen during surgery. I only have so many people that I can treat, and I have to make a decision about what this resource is going to be used and how it's going to be used." We don't have any logistics support to be able to provide us oxygen. Her breathing difficulties were likely caused by a chronic heart problem… and her need for oxygen might continue indefinitely. His job was to manage the flow of patients through the hospital, and he said he faced a quandary - what to do about Nathalie LeBrun. The field hospital's liaison officer was a nurse named Patrick Kadilak. The team found more fuel, but 24 hours later, bottled oxygen remained scarce. "We're at a critical level with our diesel supply. Logistician Matt Hickey passed that news to his medical colleagues at a morning meeting under a mango tree. But the machine kept overheating and shutting down.Īnd the device runs on electricity and the fuel needed to run the electric generators was in short supply. The machine extracts oxygen from the air. They put her on a portable oxygen concentrator. The medical team had another idea for how to help LeBrun. She described later what it had felt like to go without oxygen. And the staff found another tank.Īgain, they hooked up Nathalie LeBrun to oxygen, and her breathing eased. The nurse had been told there was no more oxygen. She believed she was watching LeBrun die. In the early morning, a nurse sat with her in tears. The oxygen level in LeBrun's blood plunged dangerously low. medical team found a tank of oxygen and ran a tube to her nose to help her breathe. She's been like that for a while, but ever since the earthquake, it's added onto it.” “She can't breathe right, and her body's swollen. Through a translator, she explained that she had trouble breathing. She was 38 years old… dressed in a white nightgown with lacy trim. One patient who arrived at the field hospital the week after the earthquake was identified in medical records merely as Jane Doe 326. government's National Disaster Medical System. It took place at a field hospital housed in tents on a college campus courtyard in Port-au-Prince. Decisions were made to deny or even take away life-prolonging resources from some patients - ostensibly to save others. ![]() Working in the heat, with few of their usual tools and the constant fear of aftershocks, they doubtless saved thousands of lives and limbs.īut something else took place in the field hospitals in those early days of the disaster… something that medical personnel rarely face or discuss. Doctors and nurses who volunteered in Haiti right after the earthquake faced extreme challenges. ![]()
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