National Association of Social Workers

Devastating Earthquake in Haiti Has Many Stepping Up to Help Victims

Social Workers ‘Uniquely Skilled’ to Respond

“It’s not enough to mend broken bones; you’re inevitably going to have to deal with broken hearts as well.”

By Matthew Malamud, News Staff

John Michael Yanson

Social Worker and NASW Member Meg Kallman had never seen such devastation.

“Buildings were flattened like pancakes, streets were impassable with debris, cement and dust everywhere ... just everywhere,” she said, struggling for the words to convey her first impression of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

On Jan. 13, just a day after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake brought that Caribbean island nation to its knees, killing hundreds of thousands of people and injuring countless more, Kallman and her colleagues with the New Jersey-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team received orders that they were to be deployed to Haiti. Eighty percent of Haiti’s approximately 9 million people live in abject poverty, according to the CIA World Factbook, making it the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Several states have DMATs, which are groups of highly trained medical personnel capable of triaging patients and providing medical care in austere situations. Kallman, who specializes in treating people for sudden and traumatic loss, is the New Jersey-1 DMAT’s mental health specialist for both the crew and disaster victims. Being a DMAT member means always having your bags packed, ready to go in case Uncle Sam beckons, she explained.

Days after arriving on Jan. 14 in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, the New Jersey-1 DMAT set up a two-tent hospital amid the rubble in nearby Pétion-Ville, where they treated hundreds of patients daily.

“There were broken bones, pieces of kids’ feet that were gone, scalps exposed, people were dehydrated,” recalled Kallman, who is once again stateside after spending more than two weeks in Haiti.

She said whenever possible, more seriously injured patients were stabilized and taken by medevac to either a better-equipped makeshift hospital or the U.S. Navy’s Comfort, an oil tanker retrofitted as a floating hospital and anchored off the coast of Haiti.

Nevertheless, demand outpaced supply and the DMAT physicians sometimes found themselves forced to make the tough decision of denying life-prolonging care to people who clearly would not survive their injuries, according to Kallman.

The trip to Haiti was Kallman’s first overseas mission, though she has assisted in several domestic disaster relief efforts, including in Louisiana and Mississippi post-Hurricane Katrina.

Many times Kallman’s expertise in sudden and traumatic loss was called upon. She brought up one harrowing event where a man was hit by a water truck, and after efforts to save his life failed, he was pronounced dead.

“About a half-hour later his brother came, so I worked with the brother and the Army chaplain,” she said. It was also Kallman who escorted the shaken man to identify his brother’s body.

Amy Bess, NASW senior practice associate for human rights and international affairs, said that in the wake of disaster, it’s important for officials to recognize that psychosocial well-being is on a par with physical health.

“It’s not enough to mend broken bones; you’re inevitably going to have to deal with broken hearts as well,” Bess said. “That’s where social workers come in, and that’s why professionals like Kallman are indispensible to the relief effort.”

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From March 2010 NASW News. © 2010 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved. NASW News articles may be copied for personal use, but proper notice of copyright and credit to the NASW News must appear on all copies made. This permission does not apply to reproduction for advertising, promotion, resale, or other commercial purposes.