I expect more doctors than nurses can afford to go to Haiti to help.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/25/haiti.doctors.nurses/index.html?hpt=T2&hpt=Sbin
By Lisa Desjardins and Danielle Dellorto, CNN
January 25, 2010 9:30 a.m. EST
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- So many doctors are answering Haiti's call for medical aid that the largest hospital in Port-au-Prince has a new problem: organizing and finding good use for them all.
"I think there is a lot of confusion," said Marivittoria Rava, a longtime volunteer with the charity Friends of the Orphans, which runs a children's hospital caring for some post-operative patients from the general hospital.
Rava said that medical supplies and resources have improved, but the crush of volunteer doctors in Port-au-Prince can complicate treatment in the city while there is great need for help in other places hit by the earthquake.
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Nurses are in short supply. A nursing school on the grounds of the general hospital was crushed in the earthquake, killing some of the people who would be giving care now. The flood of outside volunteers is mostly doctors, not nurses.
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Even as they juggle an abundance of doctors, many volunteers said they worry the general hospital in Port-au-Prince could again face dire need after this first wave of medical staff rotates out of Haiti over the next two weeks.
Those on the ground advise doctors who want to help Haiti to wait and volunteer in a few weeks or months.
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