Continued care hard to find for Haitian patients discharged from U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Comfort

Colleagues,

As noted in an earlier post ... Telemedicine in Haiti ... the long term challenge for Haiti will be the development of sustainable systems for primary, chronic and rehabilitative care. two medTech-IQ members, Dr Wiliam Smith (Center for International Rehabilitation) and Scott Simmons (University of Miami) have just returned from Haiti, and we look forward to their assessments & recommendations ...

As reported in the "Stars & Stripes ... Before this American hospital ship could even be seen off the coast of earthquake-devastated Port-au-Prince last month, Haitians with
desperate crush injuries were flown out to the ship for emergency surgery. But
bringing patients aboard has proven much easier than sending them home.

Of the roughly 400 patients on the Comfort, around 150 are ready to be discharged to a less sophisticated facility, if only they had some place to go ...The U.S. military, the United Nations and other aid groups are building an interim care facility with at least 150 beds in Port-au-Prince to serve as a central discharge center, but it’s not a reality yet ... The ultimate goal is to keep as many patients in Haiti as possible, but some
have such severe breaks and soft-tissue damage that they need the aggressive
care of the United States health care system.

Read on at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67905