Resource Allocation in Developing World Disaster Relief

Operation Smile's photos of the team: http://picasaweb.google.com/webmaster.operation.smile/HaitiResponse#

Phone call from Jay:
Disaster relief in the developing world is new experience for our entire team. We are about two days from running out of the sterile gowns and sponges needed to operate. Unless we get restocked, we won't be able to continue as we've been doing. Anyone with supplies, like crutches and such, should please text, email, or call Pauline Bridgeman (pauline.bridgeman@gmail.com, 717-418-8748). She will pass on the information to the camp director who has the ability to arrange for one of the many private planes being offered for service to pick up the supplies and bring them down.

Because of the limited resources and large number of patients, the team is having to make difficult choices about who to treat and how to treat-- more debridement in a dusty OR vs amputation in country with no social services, therapists, or crutches/prostheses for follow-up care. There are a few patients who are quite surgically needy and there are many more who have less-urgent but still serious surgical needs. How do you choose to use what are possibly your last surgical supplies? There is a possibility that the most surgically-needy patients will be able to be transferred by helicopter to the medical/surgical ship Comfort-- which has "more sterile" and air conditioned operating rooms.

More later...