Bad Burn

This little girl came in with a really bad burn. Haitians cook their food over little charcoal fires, sometimes right inside their house on the dirt floor or maybe out front under a little overhang. Burns from the charcoal fires are common for the children. It had been there for a while and was really oozy and painful-looking. (See what happens when non-professional people are talking medical jargon- really technical terms & descriptions are used!)

Nurse Jana began gently cleaning it with the help of her very able medical staff (tranlator/flashlight holder, errand runner/Dr's wife; pre-teen assistant translator/ stuff getter) using the most cutting-edge medical equipment available (flashlight & saline-filled syringe) on a state of the art exam table (propped on her knees).

See- I told you it was yucky and oozy!... but what about all that black, crusty stuff? Special Haitian remedy... because medical care is either uavailable or too costly, Haitians come up with some remedies to try and get by on their own. This is one of the more common ones- coating the burn with charcoal! Another remedy we see often (in fact that very same day) is toothpaste. One of our cooks was bumped while carrying a pan of rice with hot bean sauce- we were summoned to aide, but before we could even get down the stairs her chest had been turned into a sea of blue Crest! OUCH! These remedies make a bad situation even worse.

Finally, after a lot of saline, soaking & debriding, this pretty girl's boo-boo is all cleaned up AND crust-free :-)

She is slathered with burn ointment and bandaged up and instructed to return daily for dressing changes.
It is amazing how quickly they respond once they receive appropriate treatment. In just a few days her wound -site is much smaller and starting to heal over- no more yuck or oozing! Yaaay! Good job team! Thank you Lord for providing care for this precious little girl. A nasty burn like this is sure to get infected in Haiti- and without treatment to stop the infection burned children can lose limbs or even die. But not this child, not this time!