GUY RAZ, host:
NPR's Joanne Silberner has been trying to get to Haiti for two days now. She is with a disaster medical assistance team from Georgia. Now, that group ended up on a nearby island after plane troubles, and crowding kept them from landing at the Port-au-Prince airport. They've been there for two nights. Joanne sent us this report about how the team is staying occupied while waiting for a flight in.
JOANNE SILBERNER: We (unintelligible) at a luxury resort but the Georgia team really wants to get over to Port-au-Prince. One nurse told me, doing is easier than waiting. The immediate challenge for the medical team is staying sharp, so this morning team leader Wendy Nesham(ph) arranged for some lessons. Three dozen doctors, nurses, pharmacists and the like sat in an open air meeting room, complete with resort music. They got a lesson in Haitian Creole from bell captain Maxine Florio(ph).
Mr. MAXINE FLOURIO: The Haitian love when a foreigner ask them, sak passe. Say in Creole, sak passe.
Unidentified Group: Sak passe.
Mr. FLORIO: English, that mean what's going on, how are you?
SILBERNER: They learned how to ask: I'm going to examine you, and does it hurt here?
They got a more somber lesson from team member Jeff Hirsch(ph). He told them the medical needs in Haiti, mostly crush injuries right now, are going to change soon.
Mr. JEFF HIRSCH: If you've been trapped for 72 hours, you haven't had any fluids and you've had some trauma, it's a very poor prognosis if you're still alive when they find you.
SILBERNER: Next up, infectious diseases from unsanitary living conditions. And Hirsch told them the toughest lesson of all is that they can't practice the same level of medicine they've been practicing in the U.S.
Mr. HIRSCH: As much as it tears your heart apart and as much as you would like to help everybody, I got to tell you, it tears me apart to walk past the kid on the street, see them suffer, know I could do something and then just keep walking. But we are not able to give definitive treatment to all the people we would like to treat. We need to treat the sickest that we can turn around and we need to prioritize. And that's the reality. We will save more lives and do more good, and we're not going to be able to deal with every individual case of suffering as much as we would love to. Not going to happen, okay?
SILBERNER: Hirsch tells them it's going to be stressful and difficult and rewarding.
Joanne Silberner, NPR News, Providenciales Island, Turks and Caicos.