A physical therapist from Methodist Hospital in San Antonio is on her way to Haiti to help earthquake victims. She’s volunteering to serve what is shaping up to be a wave of amputee patients.
The scenes of devastation in Haiti are unforgettable. When a 7.0 magnitude quake ravaged the island in January 2010, it left behind thousands of injured people, with body parts crush in the rubble.
“An now when they’re going in, they’re finding out that these fractures are so old, that the blood supply to the limb has been disrupted for so long, that the limb can no longer be salvaged,” explained physical therapist Mahera Jeevanjee, 29.
Thousands of Haitians are suddenly amputees. In fact, by the end of the crisis, more than 2% of the population may have amputations.
That’s where Jeevanjee comes in. With her physical therapy expertise, she helps people like four-year-old Aidan who’s recovering from brain surgery at Methodist Hospital. Now, she’ll use her training to help injured Haitians get out of bed and on the road to recovery.
“We’ve been warned that we’ll have to make difficult decisions as far as discharge planning goes,” she said. “We will have to discharge children and adults alike from the hospital who have no place to go.”
Volunteering with a group called Project Medshare, Jeevanjee will be in Haiti for eight days, working in a tent hospital at the Port-Au-Prince airport. She’s from Pakistan, and said she has a real empathy for poverty-stricken people in developing countries.
“As a medical professional, I think it’s very appropriate for me to go help in times of need in a country that’s so poor and is so devastated by this earthquake,” Jeevanjee commented.
This probably won’t be her only trip to help these earthquake victims. Extra physical therapists like her will be needed in Haiti for years to come.
