Within 30 minutes of last month’s Haitian earthquake, students and faculty at the nursing school in Léogâne, a city near the epicenter where 80 percent to 90 percent of the buildings were flattened, began to treat hundreds of victims.
An orthopedic care team treats a patient on the school grounds. Photo by Tim Bristol.
In the days that followed, thousands of the injured and the homeless came to the Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti, which was co-founded by Ruth Barnard, associate professor emerita of nursing at the School of Nursing.
Today, several thousand people live in a tent village on the school grounds. International emergency response teams have set up operating and treatment rooms in the school’s classrooms, and a 50-bed temporary hospital is being built there. Through it all, the nursing school’s students and faculty have continued to care for patients — at the school and at first-aid stations they established around Léogâne.
On Feb. 20, the U-M Student Nurses’ Association will sponsor the third annual Hope for Haiti Charity Ball to raise money for the school, which offers the country’s only four-year baccalaureate nursing program. The ball will be from 8 p.m. to midnight at the Michigan League Ballroom. Tickets ($15 for students and $20 for faculty members and the general public) are available at the Michigan Union Ticket Office and through Ticketmaster.
A tent village, now home to several thousand injured and homeless Haitians, has been set up on the grounds of the Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti. School buildings are in the background. Photo by Tim Bristol.
“This is one way that U-M nursing students can do their part to help the people of Haiti and especially the school of nursing there, which is close to our hearts,” says junior Heather Erdmann, events coordinator for the Student Nurses’ Association.
The U-M nursing students are working with the Ann Arbor-based Haiti Nursing Foundation to provide funds that support students at the Léogâne nursing school. The two previous Hope for Haiti balls raised a total of about $12,000.
Since the earthquake, the Haiti Nursing Foundation has provided funds to support the relief effort under way on the school grounds, paying for everything from medical supplies to food, water and gasoline to power the generators that provide electricity.
Once the relief effort eases a bit, the focus will shift to reopening the school and getting the students back in class, says Marcia Lane, executive director of the Haiti Nursing Foundation.
“Funds from the Hope for Haiti Ball will support those students, which in turn will help the school continue to serve as a center of care for the local community,” Lane says. “The temporary hospital that’s being built there could remain open for more than a year, so the nursing school will continue to be a center of treatment for the city of Léogâne and the surrounding area.”
Donations to the Hope for Haiti Charity Ball are being accepted by the Student Nurses’ Association. Make checks payable to the Haiti Nursing Foundation and mail them to the School of Nursing, 400 N. Ingalls St., Suite 1160, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
