Cholera Creates Havoc in Haiti--November 2011

Robillard--Photo by John Carroll

Cholera has sickened over one-half million Haitians and killed at least 6,500 (conservative estimates) during the past 13 months.

But cholera has upset hundreds of thousands of other Haitian lives–even people who are not ill with cholera.

For example, this little 79-year-old lady (photo above) lives high on one of the mountains in this commune in a village named Dulorier. But because cholera has been infecting and killing so many people in her village, her family moved her down to the “plain” to Bois Cade where she now lives with one of her 10 children and has better access to a clinic if she becomes ill from cholera. (I saw her in the clinic for another problem.)

Her daughter reported that there are very few motorcycles that come and go to her mother’s village on the mountain now due to lack of people from cholera deaths and abandonment of the village. So it would be very hard to transport a sick person quickly down the mountain side and cholera can take an elderly person’s life in a matter of hours.

Photo by John Carroll

And late this afternoon a man came into the clinic from a nearby area who had been attacked by an angry man with a machete.

He was attacked because many Haitians believe that life and death is supernatural and that illnesses can be “sent” from one to another. They believe that one does not die from cholera in a “natural sense”.

The man with the machete wounds was believed to have “sent” cholera to other people, so he needed to be killed.

He suffered severe defensive lacerations to the backs and sides of both hands. His right hand above had a deep wound that severed both bones and tendons at his knuckle joints of his right index and long fingers. He could not extend either finger.

So I repaired his right hand and my Haitian colleague repaired his left.

This is all so sad.

John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org