1/30/2010 - Travel Day

The last of Team 1 left Mission of Hope at 7am to travel to the Domican Republic.

Three helicopters brought patients to MOH during the day waiting on Team 2.

Team 2 left Ft. Worth Spinks airport at 7am and after a 15 hour journey through Turks and Caicos for fuel to the DR. They then drove into Haiti, seeing 3 jackknifed trucks which caused a major traffic jam along the way. There was no cargo space on the planes to take any of the truckload of critically needed supplies. Those will be shipped to them this week.

They overlapped briefly with Team 1 at the airport. Dr. Goldberg said they looked tired but healthy and that Dr. Hurt had obviously done a great job leading the team. Team 1 actually brought them a gift, a 12 pack of Presidente beer, for them to enjoy on the ride! While at the airport they assigned tasks to everyone. It is a huge blessing that they all get along very well.

Dr. Goldberg said the difference between the DR and Haiti was unbelievable: poverty everywhere in Haiti, people living on top of each other in tent cities, people burning trash in the street. A night and day difference from DR.

They arrived at MOH which is very nice on top of a hill where they got a good meal after not having anything to eat all day. They were amazed by the amount of infrastructure that Team 1 had put together, they went from nothing to a working OR and clinic.

2 ER physicians and a nurse from Maryland and 2 additional nurses from Canada staffed MOH during the overlap and will be a nice complement to our team.

There were 12 patients waiting for them, 6 of them needing immediate surgery. They expect to receive an additional 10 to 31 patients transferred to MOH today.