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Alan Richards, M.D., and other members of UNMC’s second Haiti deployment team returned to Omaha this weekend after nine days of work in Port-Au-Prince. While in Haiti, Dr. Richards helped a 16-year-old Haitian girl with a massive tumor in her mouth get to the United States to receive treatment she needs to save her life. |
Last week, Alan Richards, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery, helped a 16-year-old Haitian girl with a massive tumor in her mouth receive life-saving treatment.
The tumor had grown in the girl’s upper jaw for several months but in Haiti, she had no access to the care she needed. Last week, she was brought to Dr. Richards, who was one of 12 members of UNMC’s second volunteer deployment to Haiti.
Dr. Richards concluded that the tumor would quickly take the girl’s life unless she received treatment that was not available in Haiti. This information was passed on to U.S. hospitals and late last week the girl and her mother were sent to a hospital in Florida where she will be treated.
“It just so happened that her tumor was exactly the kind that I treat here at UNMC,” Dr. Richards said Sunday upon his return to Omaha’s Eppley Airfield.
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Dr. Richards and the other members of UNMC’s second Haiti deployment returned to Omaha this weekend. Eleven of the 12 team members had returned by Sunday evening and one is scheduled to return today.
The team, composed of eight nurses, two physicians, one pharmacist and one physician assistant, worked for nine days to assist those injured in the earthquake.
They worked primarily at the University of Miami/MediShare Hospital at the Port-Au-Prince Airport and at General Hospital, also in Port-Au-Prince.
“The suffering of the Haitian people is still terrible,” Dr. Richards said.