Doctors Without Borders--Drouillard Cholera Treatment Center Update--May 2012

United Nations=Cholera and Rape (Photo by John Carroll--May 1, 2011)

The people in the photo are pumping water from the underground water table in Drouillard. Some have the means to treat the water with Aquatabs and chlorox, and some don't.

 

MSF-Drouillard Cholera Treatment Center  (CTC) is just down the street from this site.

 

The CTC has 57 inpatients tonight and had 29 new cholera admissions today (May 1, 2012.) There was one death this morning and one death this afternoon of "people who came too late". The vast majority of the patients are coming from Cite Soleil.

 

This CTC is very well run. They have great security at the front gate. Chaos and noise are not tolerated. 

 

The tents are very clean. The many different locations to wash ones hands have buckets filled with the right concentration of chlorox. 

 

The supplies are neatly kept in the tents. 

 

The patients look much better than the ones that flooded the CTC at Hopital Albert Schweitzer last summer. 

 

Tonight there are four Haitian nurses working with one Haitian doctor. 

 

An MSF official told me that they are getting more daily admits than they did a year ago at this time and he said he did not know if this was a good sign or a bad sign. It is good if people are coming earlier (which is my guess), and it is bad if there is more cholera. 

 

 

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org