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In This Issue:
Annie Lewis-O’Connor, PhD, MPH, NP, is in Saint Marc, Haiti, caring for earthquake survivors with a team of BWH and PIH staff. This is an excerpt from a Jan. 31 e-mail about her first full day at Saint Michael’s. Read the full story online at BWHPikeNotes.org/Haiti
Today a severely pre-eclamptic mother who was not aware she was carrying twins would live because of team work, serendipity and prayer.
While on our way to the warehouse to retrieve supplies, Stephanie and I decided to stop in the maternity ward to check on a palliative care patient. We happened upon a very pregnant woman who was thrashing in the bed as family members try to hold her down on the bed. Stephanie Victoria from 12C is Haitian American and speaks French Creole. She interprets as I ask questions. The family states she is due March 7—her exam suggests close to full term and she is healthy and this is her first child.
She needs a C-section now—her condition is life threatening. There is no OB doctor in the hospital, only Ortho and Internists. We ask every doctor if they could perform a stat C-section. A doctor from Nepal steps up but as we get her to the OR, the local OB doctor arrives.
The patient is quickly given general and I wait outside the OR- there is no Pediatrician or Neonatalogist. Deb, an orthopedic OR nurse is in the OR—this is a first for her. Cheryl, the other OR nurse goes into the OR to check and from the open door to the OR states: “there are twins and they are both blue.”
Cheryl had brought a pediatric resuscitation kit at the request of a previous team. Just minutes before the birth, Cheryl had brought the kit from the warehouse to the OR for safe keeping. Who would have known that just minutes later the kit would be vital in saving the twins? Deb, Cheryl, Dr. Shri (UCSF- Internist) one of the Haitian nurses and I worked as a team to resuscitate both babies with no oxygen (the one source of oxygen was being used for the mother). We suctioned, stimulated, kept them warm.
Members of our team prayed for mother and daughters. Both babies on pedi ward tonight. Look grand! Mom slowly improving...It is a miracle.