The truck

So tonight I start the first of nights for a little while anyways...Yesterday I had the opportunity to go out on "the truck". After the quake one of the guys John and Beth knows asked them if they would come out to his neighborhood because people out there needed help and no one was coming to help them. Thus "the truck", a sort of make-shift clinic on wheels/ambulance began going out mon/wed/fri to neighborhoods no other AID organizations were going into.They brought patients back to the clinic that needed more attention then could be given in the field.They casted and splinted people, did wound care, started antibiotics on people and people would come back week after week to get care. A lot of the original patients in the clinic came from these neighborhoods. Many were found with infected wounds, broken bones and severely malnourished babies (Kenny was found on one such trip weighing 3 pounds!) Its an amazing thing to watch and although yesterday we only had a few patients in the neighborhood we went too it was obvious that the people living there have appreciated the care that has come to them via "the truck"
The below video is of the neighborhood we went into. Alex is one of the guys volunteering with Heartline from LA. All the kids love him as you can tell! Notice the dangling power cords etc. We sat on the top of the truck but had to be weary of things hanging down!!

The clinic is also winding down. We are no longer taking walk-in patients which is too bad as its the only free clinic for the people in this immediate neighborhood but we just can't anymore with most of our medical staff are leaving in the near future. And our inpatients are slowly leaving too. A lot of these patients really have no place to go and I have heard talk that John and Beth are possibly planning on allowing a few stay on at Heartline till they can figure out the best possible place for them.

As for the future of the clinic that is being decided...so we will have to wait and see.
I am going to head off now to see the women's clinic as I have not been there yet. The women's clinic was up and running before the earthquake and encompasses a prenatal program and birthing clinic. I also understand that it was the original operating place in the first days. There is also a women's program run out of it where the women make purses etc and they are sold in North America with the women seeing the profits of the same. I will get more information about this as this is something that I strongly believe in...

till later...
Lise