We arrived in Ethiopia with no problems. The flights were long - about 17 hours total. Some of our medical equipment was detained in customs, hopefully we will get it soon! We hope to get a good night's sleep tonight!

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Drs. Glenn Isaacson and Mike Cohen in the Philadelphia airport waiting for our flight.

Leaving for Ethiopia

I am heading to the airport to go to Ethiopia. It will take two long flights, almost a day to get there. After many weeks of planning and preparation, our team is looking forward to providing care to needy patients and helping several hospitals improve their level of care. There are only about 10 anesthesiologists in the entire country for a population of over 85 million. So there is a great deal of need.
Please check back to see how we are doing!
Liz

Ethiopia but still Haiti

I have been home now for almost three weeks - just a little longer than I was in Haiti. I still constantly think of my time in Haiti. I have images in my mind that will be there forever. Yesterday morning it was raining very heavily here, and there was thunder and lightening. If my house started to shake, I would have been sure it was an earthquake. I will never hear and feel thunder again the same way. A friend is now in Port au Prince and said that they had a big aftershock over the weekend and it was quite scary. We had lots of rain this weekend, and I was imagining what Haiti would be like with that much rain.

I am still in touch with many people that I went to Haiti with - by email, facebook and phone. For the first week and a half that I was home, I talked to some people several times a day to give them advice about supplies and equipment and personnel. It actually made me feel like I was still serving a purpose in Haiti. I find that my mind almost always ends up thinking about Haiti when I am not actively thinking or concentrating on something else.

It is hard to get real information about what is going on there. I have a few sites that I follow on facebook and twitter, but there is very little on the news. The hospital I was at will probably only continue to provide free care to the community until mid-April. They originally committed to three months, and that will soon be up. There are many discussions both here and there about what is next. I am very conscious of the continuing need for medical care as well as basic human needs.

In a few days, I will be heading to Ethiopia with Healing the Children, Greater Philadelphia to provide medical care and education for pediatric patients at Black Lion Hospital and Cure Hospital in Addis Ababa, the capital. I was there with several others in October and November of 2009 on a planning visit for this trip. We hope that this will just one of many trips in which we will provide services in pediatric ENT (ear, nose and throat) and urology. I was looking at some of my pictures from Ethiopia the other day while getting equipment together. There are many striking similarities between Ethiopia and Haiti. While Ethiopia hasn't just been hit by an earthquake, the need for medical care and education is just as great.

So, stay tuned! I hope to keep adding pictures and comments on my many adventures. You can follow me on facebook or email me: edrum19@yahoo.com

Thanks for reading!!

A far cry from US hospitals

An in-patient tent

Pre op waiting area

This was a broken bed which was outside of the building where the OR was. Every day lots of patients would just show up here waiting for surgery.

A Happy Patient

This is Schneider. He was in the hospital for many weeks with an infection in his heel. Everyday when we came by, he would ask me for my yellow flashlight that I had hanging on my bag. On the day he was going home, I couldn't resist giving it to him!