Efforts receive wide media attention

Minnesota Hospital Association members are continuing to contribute to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

Following are updates from hospitals and health systems on their activities - see last week's article here to review others' work:

• Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services donated medical supplies through the American Refugee Committee. The health system has also been collecting names of employees who are interested in volunteering in Haiti, and it is working to determine appropriate service opportunities for them.
  
  
• Mark Marshall, an emergency room physician assistant at Mille Lacs Health System (MLHS) of Onamia, went to Haiti as a volunteer about two weeks ago, and he will stay for a month. He spent about a week in the Dominican Republic helping patients who have had emergency amputations and other surgeries.
  
  Hospital R.N. Dustin Voss, who served in Haiti for a week, returned last Monday. Read a Mille Lacs Messenger newspaper story about the matter.
  
  Marshall is staying in a refugee camp compound, sleeping in a tent; he told his colleagues at the health system that that area is safe.
  
  He sees 50-70 patients a day.
  
  "He's doing great things for them," said MLHS Community Relations and Foundation Director Lois Lahr. "During the day he travels by car to a small clinic that he is running. He says the area is not safe but that he is guarded by two men with machetes."
  
  Lastly, MLHS ER nurse Monica Lahr will travel to Haiti next week.

• Dan Critchfield, an R.N. at the ER at North County Regional Hospital in Bemidji, left for Haiti Jan. 21 to provide medical aid with International Faith Missions. The hospital donated some critical medical supplies for Critchfield to take along. See Bemidji Pioneer related accounts and photos here: article 1; article 2; and article 3. (Sign up for a free subscription to view the articles.)

• Riverwood Healthcare Center in Aitkin has donated four pallets of medical supplies worth $10,700 to the Haiti earthquake relief effort. In addition, Riverwood anesthetist John Ziebarth donated $6,500 of his own funds and anesthesia equipment.
  
  Riverwood also raised $3,315 from employees, and the organization will match those donations and send the $6,630 to the Red Cross Haiti relief fund.
  
  Riverwood reported that Patty Nelson of Aitkin, a retired nurse and coordinator for Project Haiti Inc., arranged for medical supplies from Riverwood, Cuyuna Regional Medical Center of Crosby and St. Joseph's Medical Center of Brainerd to be sent to Haiti. Aitkin-based Project Haiti supports medical missions to Haiti. The last 10 years, the organization has provided medical advice and technical support to a charity hospital it helped establish in Pignon, which is about 60 miles from Port-au-Prince.
  
  Drs. Paul Severson and Howard McCollister, surgeons at both Riverwood and at Cuyuna, have traveled with medical teams many times to Pignon to perform operations and train Haitian physicians. The two have been planning a trip there for March with a team of about 12-15 medical professionals to train surgical residents from Port-au-Prince. McCollister said that trip likely will now involve treating earthquake survivors.
  
  Severson, the founder of Project Haiti in 1992, is answering phone calls from physicians around the country who are volunteering their services in Haiti, Riverwood said.
  
  Following are links from Riverwood to stories on Project Haiti and earthquake relief:
  - Minnesota Public Radio
  - Brainerd Dispatch
  

• St. Joseph's Medical Center of Brainerd made a cash donation of $4,000 to support the group discussed in this Brainerd Dispatch article. (Type in "Haiti medical group" to be routed to the story.)
  
  In addition, St. Joseph's donated an ultrasound system worth $14,000 and drugs worth $4,400.
  
  
• Employees of the Brainerd Lakes Health system who went to Haiti as part of the trip mentioned above are:
  - Sharon Kramer, education nurse
  - Sharon Manion, surgical nurse
  - Dr. Paul Milloy, retired physician from the health system
  - Sue Hadland, nurse practitioner
  - Dr. Troy Duininck, general surgeon
  
  Brainerd Lakes Health system includes St. Joseph's Medical Center, Brainerd Medical Center, and the St. Joseph's Clinics.
  
  
• Three staff members from Wheaton Community Hospital & Medical Center are in Haiti and will serve a total of nine days. They are: Donna Wahl, R.N.; Chuck Pryzmus; and Perry Engstrom, M.D. The three will be traveling with a group from the Brainerd area and they are working in an established hospital.