Kim Sulack, News Editor, and Molly Mullen, Editor-in-Chief

After spending seven days working with surgical teams on the Haitian border, registered nurse Danya Swanson didn’t cry once, not until the day she found out she was leaving.

“It may have been somewhat from exhaustion, but I just broke down,” Swanson said. “I didn’t want to leave.”

Swanson was the only registered nurse in the team of nine people from Creighton University Medical Center in the first group to assist with the medical efforts in Haiti.

First Impressions

The group landed in the Dominican Republic five days after the initial earthquake in Haiti. It spent the night at Creighton’s Institute for Latin American Concern, where all of the funds from campus fundraisers go. By Feb. 2, CU Hands for Haiti had raised $2,000, said Arts & Sciences senior Patrick Carter.

The next day, the group drove to Jimani, on the Dominican Republic side of the border, where displaced people had gathered in front of an abandoned orphanage.

There, hundreds of people were, laying in truck beds, under trees and on cardboard outside the building waiting for volunteers to help.

Jennifer Anson, a nurse anesthesiologist, said she prepared herself for the worst, and even that wasn’t enough.

“What I saw on TV was exactly what we saw when we got there, but it was still completely different,” Anson said. “Making eye contact with the people, hearing the sounds and the wails, seeing maggots in open wouds and blood and urine-soaked mattresses. It just smelled like death.”

The Creighton group worked there for seven days, completing up to 100 surgeries per day, mostly amputations. Through it all, Anson said she never witnessed any anger or resentment from the Haitian people.

On the contrary, they were grateful to God. Anson said after an aftershock hit the building, everyone evacuated, crawling out on their hands and knees, even some who had been amputated. She looked around the mass of people displaced a second time and instead of hearing cries of pain, she heard the crowd breaking out in song, singing praises to God.

“It just brought you to tears,” she said.

“We gave them a pat on the back or eye contact and treated as many people as we could, and they gave us love right back.”

That’s not to say they did not have a hard time. Dr. Brian Loggie, who organized the first mission, said when they arrived in Jimani, there was an extreme lack of supplies. Injured people who had been treated before they arrived had to be treated again or amputated because of poor medical care. There was no organization to the facilities.

“Before we got there, it was like Civil War medicine . . . amputations done without anesthesia,” Loggie said. “The first two days were mainly spent doing amputations.”

On the Scene

By the end of the week, they had developed a flow for surguries, care and housing. They accomplished nearly 100 surgeries in one day, using six make-shift surgical tables.

More miraculously, Loggie said, supplies never completely ran out.

“One night we were down to five bags of I.V. fluids and over 50 patients. We didn’t know what we were going to do the next day,” he said. “The next day cases of I.V. fluid appeared.”

Dr. Theresa Townley, a Creighton physician, came back from Haiti with 11 Creighton nurses Monday. It was the third Creighton group to go to Jimani. She said while there is still a “tremendous medical need” in Haiti, the situation has improved. The crowd of injured people dropped from 800 on Jan. 18 to 100 on Jan. 31.

“We are now focusing on good patient care, getting antiobiotics to everyone, physical therapy, tending to fevers and addressing problems as they arise,” Townley said.

Campus Support

Arts & Sciences senior Catherine Keating, the earthquake in Haiti on Jan. 12 hit very close to home.

For an entire semester, she lived with the people of the Dominican Republic but worked with Haitian children in a batey, a community of Haitians living in the D.R. She taught them, but she also learned from them.

“I know of at least five students that I taught right now that are back in Haiti, that left the D.R. to go back to Haiti,” Keating said. “I don’t know if they were [affected]. I mean, one in three Haitians is affected, so 3 million people and five of my kids—”

Now Keating has joined with other students from various organizations to form CU Hands for Haiti, a student-led organization raising money for the relief effort in the disaster-stricken country.

“It started as a humble idea of collecting donations for Paul Farmer’s organization in Haiti [Partners in Health], and then Cat gave us the idea to ‘go big,'” said Pharmacy junior Maria Doyle, who is involved in the Jesuit University Humanitarian Action Network, one of the organizations with members involved in CU Hands for Haiti.

All of its proceeds go to ILAC, which sends Creighton teams to the D.R. year-round and has donated medical supplies and water filters to Haiti already.

CU Hands for Haiti sees itself as having two goals: fundraising for immediate help and an awareness campaign to help students understand Haiti’s history.

Its main fundraising activity is selling pins around campus. The location changes every day, but the $2 price doesn’t.

“While I was selling buttons for $2, numerous students said ‘Keep the change,’ not only for $5 bills, but for tens and twenties too,” Carter said. “It was amazing to witness.”

For dinner on Jan. 29 it also partnered with Sam and Louie’s Pizzeria; it donated 10 percent of its profits, totaling just over $200.

“It doesn’t seem like a lot,” Keating said of the money raised from Sam and Louie’s, “but every bit counts.”

Students could also donate their meal plan meals to the group.

CU Hands for Haiti also brought together Drs. Tom Kelly and Roger Bergman, associate professor of theology and director of the Justice and Peace Studies program respectively, on Jan. 26 to speak about Haiti’s history and current conditions.

“We also want them to know that Haiti has been economically shattered since the time of its colony,” said Arts & Sciences senior Emily Ruskamp. “The earthquake wasn’t created by humans, but the situation before was, and there’s something we can do about that. There’s something we need to do about that.”

Although the devastated country may lose some attention in the mass media, the group plans on continuing.

“My hope for Haiti is that it does not fall by the wayside and that people, and especially Creighton students, take the time not just to donate their money, but really understand why buying the buttons is so important,” Doyle said. “This is just one baby step on the long road ahead to rebuild the lives of survivors in a country that didn’t have a good infrastructure to begin with.”

One plan to continue support is to promote the annual Red Cross blood drive put on by the Arts & Sciences Student Senate.

“We’re really going to encourage people to attend that because the blood from the Red Cross, a lot of it is going to Haiti and they need that to replenish,” Keating said. “That’s something you can do that isn’t monetary, that is really needed.”

The group would also like to fundraise during Lent, which starts Feb. 17, collecting money that students would have otherwise spent on items they’ve given up, like pop or junk food.

In the Future

Towards the end of the semester, CU Hands for Haiti would like to partner with Legado de Compasion, another student organization that works to help those in the D.R. Last year, it partnered with Kids Against Hunger, a national humanitarian food-aid organization, to bring a food drive to campus.

Food collected was sent to Haiti, and Keating is hoping to do that again this year.

CU Hands for Haiti has a Facebook page, and as of Wednesday it had 1,080 fans. Although Keating is pleased with this number, she’d like more student participation.

“If you think about it, that’s only a fourth of undergrad, and we’re trying to sell buttons in the med school and elsewhere,” she said.

Carter hopes the support for Haiti will continue after this semester ends and many in CU Hands for Haiti graduate.

“The injustices that existed prior to the earthquake – and exacerbated its effects –will continue to exist in the country,” Carter said. “However, with the incorporation of the mission of Hands for Haiti into other existing organizations, I believe that advocacy and education will continue to be a part of CU’s long-term response to these injustices and the disaster.”