Before the last team left, the paramedics had asked us to make sure we re-treated the patient with bedsores from the town of Similian. Today we fulfilled that promise. Fred,  paramedic Kellen, and Gil, our driver, went to get the elderly man who has been bedridden for five years and was trapped in his bed during the earthquake.

Unfortunately, Fred and Dr. Spencer, our Haitian doctor, suspected the wounds were worse and possibly close to gangrene. After cleaning them well, they transported him to the hospital for further treatment.

I surprised myself today by diagnosing a case of malaria at triage just from the symptoms. Maybe I should have gone to med school rather than becoming a journalist. A young man had a high fever and just  looked sick and I sent him back quickly and Dr. Dean Siebert confirmed he had malaria. 

The Similian clinic was originally held under mango trees next to a sugar cane plantation. Then we moved to a nearby church. But today the church was being renovated and we were back under the mango trees.  It was so much cooler than the church, it was delightful. But, crowd control is much tougher in the open without confining walls to direct the flow of traffic.