The Gift: Reflections on a Mission in Haiti 

Gisela Chrisman, RN, DCH

Clinical Coordinator, Emergency Department

Integrated Medicine Practitioner

Virtua Health, Memorial Division

Working in the emergency department for many years, the following thoughts never entered my mind. How, through one experience, does one’s outlook on life change so drastically?

The organizations Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Operation Smile linked and sent rescue teams to Fond Parisian, Haiti, to help the injured and wounded after the earthquake. We worked on grounds provided by an American couple who founded an orphanage named Love a Child.

The mission included RNs, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, prosthetists, physicians from different specialties and surgical assistants. The combination of the younger and the older professionals, willing to share the benefits of their many years of schooling and experience, added up to a vast reservoir of knowledge.

There were no monitors, no ambulances, no defibrillators, no portable oxygen tanks, no incubators, no cooling blankets, no sterilization processing, and the linen was washed by hand. There was no access to so many things we are used to having in our sophisticated medical world.

Our team running the emergency department/triage in Haiti consisted of an adult and pediatric emergency nurse; a pediatric and neonatal nurse; a third-year resident; a retired family practice nurse practitioner; an ED intern; a new orthopedic nurse; a per diem pediatric nurse; and a sexual assault nurse examiner. Three wonderful Mennonite nurses were an enormous asset.

We used the team approach to work up every patient as best as we could. We worked in dust and rain, as cleanly as possible, transporting our patients via an SUV to the more appropriate hospitals—sometimes two hours away—when our small tent hospital couldn’t handle the problem. We cooled our babies by simply wrapping them in a wet cold sheet. We transported our critically ill, septic baby via intermittent hand ventilation without oxygen to a pediatric hospital, which agreed after long pleas and conversation to accept the transfer. We ruled out head and spinal injuries by comprehensive and painstaking examination, using our hands to examine the patient and feel for fractures, with a translator to relay information.

Does that sound possible?

We also did conscious sedation without the monitor; gave antibiotics IV push as we ran out of 100 cc IV bags and hung vancomycin without a pump!

Yes it was truly possible, as we linked as a team, appreciated each other’s knowledge, consulted with, respected and listened to each other with one joined goal in mind: the best care for the patient. We comforted, consoled and were compassionate as we knew the incredible hardships our patients had endured. We were truly a team.

Never could I imagine the difference physical therapy could make in the care of some patients, such as teaching amputees how to walk up a hill again, in the gravel and in the heat, with gentle pressure and much patience.

Our results included:

• Saving a septic baby’s life
• Healing wounds and infections
• Exercising the amputated limbs for possible prosthetic fittings
• Transporting a young mother in premature labor to a hospital so she could deliver her baby safely
• Giving love, understanding and compassion to each patient
• Giving comfort and care to a dying AIDs patient
• Our NP developing a woman’s health clinic where women could come for examinations and teaching concerning birth control and contraception
• Administering antibiotics to prevent infections and treating osteomyelitis

At night we checked on our patients with only a small lamp for light. I thought of Florence Nightingale, wandering about her patients with a lamp providing dim light in her hand. She gave the patients what they needed—not necessarily what they wanted—and her success is still acknowledged today. She had a special gift, and we still think and talk about it today. As nurses, we all have that gift inside of us.

It is the gift of healing.

The gift is something that we bestow voluntarily and without compensation. When we give the gift of ourselves freely with no expectations of return, we experience a tremendous amount of satisfaction, unparalleled to anything the material world could ever offer. When our gift is welcome and enjoyed, we sense that we are living in our greatest potential and fulfilling our purpose as evolutionary beings. As we share our gift we become part of the universal benevolent energy circulating through every moment. By passing along this gift and paying forward all the gifts we have received, we manifest the universal love and inspirational force natural to our world.

In our lives and the lives of others, we create a feeling of joy and thankfulness; through this immeasurable act, we contribute to the overall progression of humanity.