Day 5

I haven't showered in days, and I haven't slept in a week. Our orphanage is in disaray and many of us are working 15 and 16 hour days, so this morning, when I got a call from a British Television network, asking if they could come to God's Littlest Angels later today, it was all I could do to hold it together.

For three of of the five days since the earthquake hit, I have been the sole nurse working with the babies at the main house. For two of those days, I was the only staff member in the NICU. The pace of life here at GLA shows no signs of slowing. Today, with no other nursing support, I was overseeing the care of 85 babies. One of them is on IV fluids and another has a nasogastric feeding tube. Several others are sick with gastroenteritis. I found four infants who were very dehydrated when I started work this morning. One of them has crackles on his right lung, which may indicate a pneumonia. We are running low on the first-line antibiotic I used to treat him. We are also low on IV fluids, particularly those containing sodium and potassium. These minerals are needed to replace salts that are lost by children who have gastroenteritis. Hopefully, some of these essential medical supplies will reach us via one of the aid flights that will be coming in over the next week or so.

We heard today that 23 of GLA's children may be leaving for the Netherlands tomorrow. The Dutch government has agreed to admit all Haitian children who are in the process of being adopted by Dutch families. For them to leave Haiti without the usual paperwork, the Haitian Prime minister must sign a paper, waiving the typical immigration requirements.

It will be an emotional day tomorrow when we wave these children off. We all know that it is in the children's best interests to go; we cannot guarantee that we will have food or baby milk for them a month from now. This kind of parting though, from such a large group of children, leaving the orphanage in such a manner, is unprecendented for us. Usually, we know when a child is nearing the end of the adoption process, and we prepare our-selves for their departure.

I have been wondering what our Haitian staff, and Haitians generally would think, when they heard that several hundred orphaned children would be evacuated out of Haiti. Would it make them sad or would they rejoice? Would they be offended and say that foreigners were 'stealing' their children.
So far, whenever I have spoken about this, our Haitian staff have responded in the same way; 'Sa bon! Pa gen anyen pou yo isit' (meaning, that's good, there is nothing for them here in Haiti.)