Haiti Bloggers

"The Haitians are fabulous and resilient people and they will overcome this."

Upon arriving in Haiti two weeks ago I had no idea what to expect. It was disaster beyond belief. Being a medical professional I was assigned to General Hospital on the night shift and assumed there would be support. However the hospital personnel had been traumatized and would not show up inside the building, so my partner, an extremely competent EMT and Nurse, and I tackled the Critical Care Unit with no supplies, very unsanitary conditions, too many patients and very little time. I hate night shift since I left the military, however, the need took precedence.

Brian Fessler of Nashville's Church of Scientology with supplies collected from the Nashville community.

As reported earlier on News Channel 5 Scientology Volunteer Ministers work together with the Hispanic Community in Nashville and ‘Haiti Needs You’ to collect items such as clothing, diapers for children and even formula.

21 January 2010 at LAX Airport: Josh (left) leaving to Haiti

Meet Scientology Volunteer Minister Josh

Following his interview with NBC we asked Josh to tell us how he came to work in Haiti and his experiences in a field operating room that could compare war zone field hospital. Here is his response, straight from the Volunteer Ministers camp in Port-Au-Prince:

All patients of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince -- including delivering moms -- are being treated on the street until the danger of new earthquakes can be ruled out.

We got up at 5:45am to get ready to go to the hospital. Our ride was a little local  bus with no windows and a very stale smell. After a 45-minute ride we get to the hospital finally, all sweaty and already tired.  But as soon as we get there we find another problem.  All our patients were gone because during the night someone said there was going to be another earthquake and so they just  rolled all the beds away from the building, with the patients in them! It took us a couple of hours to find them and bring them back to one place.

Nicole in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Update report from our Scientology Volunteer Ministers on the ground!

Volunteer Minister Mike: has been assigned to a medical team that gives tetanus shots to all the patients at the General Hospital and the field hospitals around Port-au-Prince.

Volunteer Minister Michaela sent us an email giving a glipmse of what it is like there and what she and the other volunteers are doing:

Following a report that predicted another earthquake in Haiti, all the patients were evacuated from the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince and were being treated on the street.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers from all over the world continue to arrive in Haiti to do whatever is needed to help the people of this country. Their transport has been made possible by the donations, large and small, of many Scientologists who are members of the International Association of Scientologists.

Scientology Volunteer Minister Ellen arrived in Haiti Thursday night. She reports about her first assignment at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince.

We landed last night at 1 or 2am. We had to get all our cargo from the airplane ourselves. Literally, I climbed into the cargo pit and was the one throwing the things off the airplane. We made an assembly line to receive it all. We went to the hospital today all day long. I was responsible for the team that went to the hospital and we were there from about 11am to 7pm.