Healthcare, community, and a little girl
Disasters and what it means to care
(Public domain image, 2010 Haiti).
Medicine at the heart of humanity
When she arrived unaccompanied on the back of a motorcycle we did not wonder why a six-year old was alone. It was 2010 Haiti. The effects of the disaster, including orphaned children, were widespread.
Children often survived while their parents were killed by the devastating earthquake that took the lives of over a quarter of a million people in Haiti, especially in and around the highly populated capital of Port-au-Prince.
Lucia (not her real name) was sitting on a blanket in our traige unit when I spotted her. She was hugging a stuffed animal. Now what?
I served as a first responder in post-earthquake Haiti as a nurse, administrator, and ethicist. The soul of healthcare was pulsating every minute of every day among our staff, patients, families, and the community surrounding the hospital.
In next week’s article I will unpack the story of this little girl and those who cared for her. The experiences are instructive.
J. Steven Bromwich founded 1690 Media to explore the soul of healthcare. He tells the stories of heroes and villains of historical healthcare, connecting these moral lessons to modern medicine. He is a bioethicist, criminal investigator, and RN.