Hilarie Cranmer, M.D., is a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine in Boston. On only a day’s notice, Dr. Cranmer departed for Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on January 7 to join the IRC’s tsunami relief teams there.
She has been sharing highlights of her travels and observations in an e-mail diary.
JAN 18 05: Flying in, we had to circle for about an hour, waiting for a landing slot. So we saw lots of damage, I’m sure you've seen more pictures than me. But there were wasted, brown, littered places where there used to be houses, green, lush vegetation and lots of people. More
JAN 23 05: Number one priority is water and sanitation. Imagine a camp of 6000 people, of which 2000 are kids, of which 1 in 3 has diarrhea. Our second priority is the measles vaccinations. We have had over 9 cases in the clinic, despite rounding up all the kids 3 different times. So we'll round them up again this week. Again and again. More
JAN 30 05: A man came into the clinic who had watched his wife drown, and saw his son go underwater and grabbed him, and held him upside down to get the fluid out of him, while holding onto a log with the other hand. And here they were, in clinic a month later and I said he was the best kid all day and the dad was ecstatic. More
JAN 30 05, part 2: Today is Sunday, and it's a day off—at least as far as clinical duties. We’re to write a ton of reports including inventories, contact information lists and a summary, both from team and individual perspective on our time here. So we've been spending our morning "off" at the internet cafe, the fastest one in town, where they have broadband, not dial-up. Of course, right next door is a souvenir shop. Business thrives when not devastated by a tsunami. Billboards in town let you know how to dress and how to ask forgiveness from God because of the tsunami. More
JAN 31 05: One of the nurses we’ve been working with at the clinic, Mustafa, came by the hotel to say goodbye to the team that was leaving. He had just returned from Banda Aceh himself, with the sad news that no one is left from his extended family. He and his wife and child will now move permanently to Seunuddon. And he was sure to let me know he’ll be ready for work tomorrow, amazingly. More
FEB 07 05: Banda Aceh, my last day here. Sitting on the plane with my colleague Rachel [Moresky], we're about two hours delayed. And it's "tidak ada masala," or no problem. We know we're going home, that we'll get there eventually, and that we definitely won't get there on time. . . . More
