Local doc gives ‘on the ground’ account of Haiti

Orthopedic surgeon Paul Duwelius’ scheduled trip to the Dominican Republic caught up in Haitian tragedy

By Linda Hundhammer

The Lake Oswego Review, Jan 28, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

SUBMITTED PHOTO / GREG STAEHELI

Using “battlefield medicine” procedures, patient care instructions were taped on each patient. When the doctors ran out paper, they wrote on napkins.

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Lake Oswego orthopedic surgeon Paul Duwelius spent months planning for his team’s weeklong mission trip to the Dominican Republic. As destiny would have it, he was in the right place at the right time.

“We arrived in Santiago on Jan. 15, three days after the Port-au-Prince earthquake. We were lucky to get in; there were several special ops guys on our flight,” said Duwelius. “We had plans to replace 10 hips and 12 knees at the Juan Bosch Trauma Hospital in La Vega. We’d promised people these surgeries for more than a year. But as the injured began to arrive from Haiti, we treated them, too. It was some long days.”

Duwelius’ team was part of ILAC, the Institute for Latin American Concern through Creighton University. The Oregon contingency included Duwelius, Jon Gudman, Lake Oswego anesthesiologist, and nurse Brad Jackson whose battlefield experience in Vietnam was an asset on the trip.

“We were fully equipped in La Vega, but the injured were having trouble getting across the Dominican border,” said Duwelius. “So we ended up sending a team to Jimani, which is on the border of Haiti 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) from the epicenter.”

“On the way, the docs picked up saws and drills at the local hardware store. Crush wounds are the worst; they often have to be amputated. It’s battlefield medicine out there.”

From his view “on the ground,” Duwelius reiterated the media warnings that, “No one should go to Haiti without a plan and a team. The medical sites all have military perimeters, and you must have clearance to enter. An entire team of world-class Belgian doctors was actually sent back to Belgium.”

“The Israelis have done an amazing job, but they are all trained military doctors. They practice good medicine, plus they can shoot.”

Duwelius called the Jimani outpost hospital “the eye of the storm.” Unlike the tent hospitals in Port-au-Prince, Jimani provides a physical structure, medical supplies and volunteer doctors and nurses from around the world. Plus, because it is in the Dominican Republic, there are accessible airports and passable roads.

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