April Fools Day!

Today I am struggling and it is only 7am here. It is April Fools Day so I am hoping this is all a joke.
Two days ago a one year old coded at the hospital because she had been struggling to breath for 24 hours with an Oxygen tank. We do not have any ICU capabilities. I found a transport to Port Au Prince. The hospital I found in PAP has a ventilator, if the it was not already occupied would have the capability of taking her. I basically jumped on a person who was nice enough to drop some of our arriving team members to Leogane. He lived in Port Au Prince and was returning that night. I grabbed him and said, "can you take a 1 year old baby with you. I will get someone to explain to you where to go. I am sending a Haitian Nurse with you, and the mom." I took him over to the hospital. He of course had no choice but to say yes. We got there in time to help with the code. We worked on her for 20 to 30 minutes. That was a hard one for our team. She just needed a break from breathing and we have medical technology out there in the world to help her, it just was not here. The day I arrived to Haiti I was picked up in a dump truck. This same truck was used as an ambulance that morning to transport a nurse, a tech and a newborn in respiratory distress to a hospital able to take her. I know this situation well.We are a hospital working with the kindness of several other people and their cars to get our patients to any other hospital that is better equipped for patients we just do not have the capacity or ability to treat, on top of providing care we do have here.

I am facing the same problem today. I have a 17 year old girl that has Cardiomyopathy and we had to amputate her leg. Her Kidneys are now failing. There is dialysis in Port au prince again. The hospital is ready to accept her. I just do not have a car. I was also contacting Haiti Hearts, for her needed heart surgery. I do not know the line here between futile measures and reasonable measures. Can she survive here with all these problems? I am working so hard to give her that chance. Do I risk burn out myself?

It is now almost 8am, I found a truck that we can fit her into and get her to Port au prince. I am sending an American Nurse and a driver. it is not an ambulance but it is a vehicle. It is so close to working I am not sure if I am working too hard to get her somewhere else to die, or if I am giving her hope. I know that is not a question for me to answer. But I ask it anyway.

this field hospital is symbol of hope to everyone in this area. We work with Doctors without Borders hospital as well. Our field hospital is what is left of the haitian hospital and it represents a symbol to the haitians and the people of Leogane. All the organizations are collaborating to build this hospital, sometimes there is friction, sometimes frustration, but ultimately we are all trying to improve Leogane Haiti in our own way.

She is off. I put her in a double door cabin, a nurse, with an ambo bag, some medications, and a trusty driver. I called the ER in Port au Prince. They can expect her in an hour and half.
I said goodbye to her sisters, the only family she has now. I told them to be strong and now I am back to the regular day of finding funding, convincing people to buy a car/ambulance, paying salaries, the normal Hospital adminastration things that never seem to end.

Just a few thoughts from my part of the world, on this beautiful april fools day!