Haiti Mission

Dear Friends and Patients,

This Thursday night I leave for the Dominican Republic to volunteer at El Buen Samaritan Hospital. This hospital is minutes from the border with Haiti and has hundreds of patients, maybe 1000, victims of the earthquake in Haiti. The hospital is in a very poor area and there are very limited supplies. For example, there are no beds for the patients, they are lying on the ground.

Many of the patients have extremity injuries, wounds, etc. Plastic surgeons are desperately needed, this is what we do. We are trying to save as many legs and arms as possible. The situation is very fluid and constantly changing. We just heard that there is another hospital in Haiti with no doctors. The plastic surgeons in DR are going into Haiti tomorrow to assess this situation.

A fellow NYC plastic surgeon, Donald Roland, and his wife, Fatima, are organizing teams of local plastic surgeons to go to the hospital and provide the plastic surgery care that is desperately needed to save the patient's extremities. Dr. Roland is there now with another plastic surgeon, Dr. Poda. Fatima is from DR and has many contacts there. She had been able to greatly expedite the relief efforts. I am leaving with my good friend, Dr. Mia Talmor, this week. The physicians are paying their own way and bringing our own food. We are also carrying with us as many surgical supplies as possible as the hospital has virtually nothing.

Many of our friends and family are concerned about safety issues. The Dominican Republic has a military base in this small town and there are American soldiers at the hospital. I feel we will be safe.

I am reaching out to everyone I know and asking for small donations if possible to help us with the relief effort. The monies will be used to purchase medical supplies and thus will go directly to benefit the patients. The money will not be used for any other purpose.

My medical supply company is providing the supplies at cost, so thank you to Henry Schein for this. The Henry Schein medical supply company has donated $1 million worth of supplies already and we appreciate their generosity towards our mission. Because this is last minute, we do not have a charitable foundation set-up and so your contribution will NOT be tax deductible. Checks can be mailed to my office. If you have any questions, please to not hesitate to contact my office.

I am going to try and blog from the Dominican so everyone can see the conditions and how desperately your help is needed. The address of the blog is "www.plasticsurgeonshaitirelief.blogspot.com". Thank you in advance for your generosity. The people of Haiti are in great need.

Tracy M. Pfeifer, MD, MS, FACS