Comments on: Reflections on the SCCM Disaster Field Team mission to the DR http://www.sccmblogs.org/reflections-on-the-sccm-disaster-field-team-mission-to-the-dr Critical Care Blogs Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:40:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Noel Gibney http://www.sccmblogs.org/reflections-on-the-sccm-disaster-field-team-mission-to-the-dr/comment-page-1#comment-44 Noel Gibney Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:11:42 +0000 http://www.sccmblogs.org/?p=311#comment-44 I recently spent 2 weeks in Port au Prince at the University Hospital with MSF as a member of the Renal Disaster Relief Task Force providing dialysis to patients with severe crush injury and acute kidney injury. I was struck by the almost complete absence of any form of advanced care let alone critical care. While many U.S. academic medical centers sent excellent surgical teams to man their field hospitals in the courtyard of the hospital, there were no infusion pumps, no monitors, no ventilators, and 3 oxygen tanks for the hospital or any of the hospitals in PAP. (There were 12 ICU beds on the USNS Comfort). Many patients who had extensive orthopedic surgeries performed and a number of others who we were dialyzing were "missing" in the morning when the teams returned from their safe night-time accommodation in the morning. Itwas not usually possible to transfer patients needing critical care to the USNS Comfort or to Santo Domingo. Consequently they died in large numbers. We need to ensure in future disaster response that some form of critical care facilities are also made available on the ground. This critical care field hospital could be staffed in rotation by teams from medical centers across North America. Noel I recently spent 2 weeks in Port au Prince at the University Hospital with MSF as a member of the Renal Disaster Relief Task Force providing dialysis to patients with severe crush injury and acute kidney injury. I was struck by the almost complete absence of any form of advanced care let alone critical care. While many U.S. academic medical centers sent excellent surgical teams to man their field hospitals in the courtyard of the hospital, there were no infusion pumps, no monitors, no ventilators, and 3 oxygen tanks for the hospital or any of the hospitals in PAP. (There were 12 ICU beds on the USNS Comfort). Many patients who had extensive orthopedic surgeries performed and a number of others who we were dialyzing were “missing” in the morning when the teams returned from their safe night-time accommodation in the morning. Itwas not usually possible to transfer patients needing critical care to the USNS Comfort or to Santo Domingo. Consequently they died in large numbers.

We need to ensure in future disaster response that some form of critical care facilities are also made available on the ground. This critical care field hospital could be staffed in rotation by teams from medical centers across North America.

Noel

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