Welcome Home Dr. Gerdes!

Patrick Gerdes is slightly shell-shocked and overwhelmed, like everyone who has gone to Haiti to help. He says it is absolutely impossible for there to be enough health care workers in Haiti right now. He says the whole countryside has become a hospital and that the difficulty in transporting patients to hospitals with better care is one of the most necessary and immediate needs. His expertise as an anesthesiologist was stretched beyond what he was comfortable doing.

His first day on the ground, he examined a four-year-old, whose toes had been partially amputated, but were now re-infected and in terrible shape, with bone showing. He was forced to call on his satellite phone to a vascular surgeon at his home hospital in Glens Falls, who walked him through the process of repairing the damage. He quickly became comfortable with medical procedures that were out of his element, simply out of necessity.

Dr. Gerdes said he was able to seriously impact many lives. One of those lives was a boy with an amputated arm, which was badly infected. He was able to block the area, drain the arm, and give the boy IV antibiotics. He said in three days, the boy was significantly better and would survive.

He said the biggest problem in Haiti, without question, is organization. There are people to help, food, medical supplies, and water, but the underlying problem is getting all these parts to work together efficiently. Many people have died and are dying from simple issues. But everyone can only do what they can do. Speaking of which, Dr. Gerdes sends his profuse and heartfelt thanks to the nurses at Glens Falls Hospital, some whom came back early from vacations, to cover him in his absence. "Without all these people," he says, "what I did would not have been possible."

I am amazed, still, at how God has brought all these people together, to pull together in this time of crisis. I know how Dr. Gerdes feels...without the many, many people, and without the help of God, none of this would have been possible.