EXTRA: Aid workers call for blood donors in Haiti

Port-au-Prince, Hait - Blood reserves are running low in Haiti in the wake of the devastating January 12 earthquake, prompting the aid organization Doctors Without Borders to issue a call for donors. "So many surgeries are being performed that we urgently need blood," a Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders, or MSF) representative said.

The organization was planning to issue a call in Creol to Haitians Friday to ask for donors.

MSF has treated more than 6,200 patients in the country since the quake, and its personnel has carried out around 1,000 operations.

"We have to amputate a lot," says Austrian surgeon Chris Schimanek. "The bones are often so crushed that it would take months for them to heal."

Under the current hygiene conditions in Haiti, doctors cannot afford to wait that long.

"Here we have to take other measures and amputate in cases in which in Europe we perhaps would not do it," Schimanek said.

A clean amputation and, later, a prosthesis are sometimes the best option in the circumstances.

Many limbs were amputated in catastrophic circumstances in the days immediately after the quake, in some cases without anaesthesia and without the suitable surgical instruments. Many patients are currently suffering from infections.

"After-care following surgeries is one of our most important tasks," said MSF spokeswoman Avril Benoit.

The aid organization Handicap International, in turn, is working to get prostheses made in Haiti.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/306615,extra-aid-workers-call-for-blood-donors-in-haiti.html.