On the Way Out...

Lots of things happened the morning I left:

Saw fellow Health4haiti volunteer/co-organizer Karla Prentiss at the airport as she was leaving with Medishare team on the same plane that had just delivered me 20,000 pounds of surgical supplies from a list I submitted on my deployment 2 weeks ago. She worked in the command center of the University of Miami's large field hospital at the airport this past week and sounds like was as indispensable to them as she is to our organization in Pueblo. She introduced me to a neurosurgeon going out with her whom she had had to 'pull out of the operating room where he was doing brain surgery this morning' to get him to the plane. (I think she let him finish his surgery...).

I walked the airforce forklifts with the pallets of stuff over to our trucks myself prior to getting on my own flight out.

May have found a new doc to take my place as medical director/organizer for our rapidly developing and robust supply and distribution network of medical personnel and equipment on the ground in Haiti (Airline Ambassadors International), now just two weeks old. This will help Dave Rivard of Airline Ambassadors and AAI's Haiti representative on the ground Dr Roger Jean-Charles immensely.

Made link with medical director for LDS Charities. Offered them assistance with our knowledge of pockets of need for medical team deployment. Dave offered our trucks to bring in the load of relief supplies brought in yesterday on our Airline Ambassadors partnering with United charter flight to our house/command center to get them off the airport and keep them from going into the black hole of 'unclaimed supplies'. Found out that they are also adopting CDTI hospital to help them keep U.S. medical personnel and supplies coming (my principal project since I arrived in Haiti).

What a relief to hear that such a large (we're talking MEGA-large) NGO is recognizing this state-of-the-art hospital for the resource it is. I have great faith in LDS charities for the mammoth work that they do in the world of humanitarian aid. They are probably the most highly respected NGO for their reliability from what I have heard from others and from Dave.

Dr Jim