TR in Marquette Magazine: First responder couldn’t refuse Jesuit’s call
First responder couldn’t refuse Jesuit’s call
Marquette Macazine
Fall 2010
Dr. Eduardo P. Dolhun achieved what few others could. He not only made it into Haiti three days after the Jan. 12 earthquake and before the airport opened to relief agencies, but he was one of the first Americans treating patients at the General Hospital of Port-au-Prince.
Bringing health care to far-off corners of the world isn’t new to Dolhun. In addition to his medical practice in San Francisco, he is a founding director of Doctors Outreach Clinics, an organization that forms health care partnerships with rural communities worldwide. DOC focuses on long-term solutions that pivot around relationships built over time. But the situation in Haiti required immediate action. When Jesuit Brother Jim Boynton — the vocation director for the Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus — telephoned, Dolhun knew he’d been recruited.
“I don’t know what training those Jesuits get to convince people to do things, but Jim mentioned my Marquette education and Father Wild, and that did it for me. I decided to go straight to the heart, straight to ground zero,” Dolhun says.
Dolhun’s patients and colleagues raised $15,000 in 36 hours to pay for his airfare and medical supplies (the fund eventually reached $25,000). He planned to fly to Santo Domingo and drive across the border into Haiti.
Once airborne, he told a flight attendant about his plan, and she announced it over the intercom. Instantly, 14 passengers responded, including two Milwaukee firefighters, two servicemen just back from Afghanistan, a medic and an ER doctor. They joined forces and spent the first night in Port-au-Prince at the Jesuit novitiate, where nuns were caring for a 14-year-old girl who had suffered a broken leg during the earthquake.
“Within hours of our arrival we were setting her fractured leg without anesthesia,” Dolhun says. The following day they went to the general hospital. “Everywhere we looked, someone needed help,” Dolhun says. “We saw crushed limbs, fractures, partial amputations, gangrene. … The cameras can’t capture it.”
The team was equipped to handle the chaos. “Our team ER doctor knew how to triage patients, and the servicemen were experienced at assessing risk, organizing and executing a plan,” Dolhun says. “We restructured the ER to make it more effective.”
Dolhun stayed in Haiti for eight days and treated nearly 500 patients. He left when the aid convoys began to reach Port-au-Prince. He’ll return to Haiti soon, this time to set up a DOC partnership and build resources that address the health care needs of the Haitian people. “Now Haiti is a part of me,” he says. — JMM
Re Dr. Dolhun’s last statement: I’m not surprised. Brother Jim is still there, and Mark (Hayward) has gone back twice trying to find ways to help some young people he met there and checking on people he and TR treated when they were there after the quake. I think it is a part of many of us, and will be for a long time to come.
I will be meeting brother Jim Boynton tomorrow. We will be promoting oral rehydration therapy in the camps, hospitals, and orphanages. I am taking enough Drip Drop to treat 800-1000 children suffering from dehydration.