The earthquake of January 12, 2010 in Haiti has made many wounded limb traumas. The treatments that have been used have reached a controversy about the opportunity of some amputations. Since then, amputated of all ages are crowding hospitals of the country.

From the start of its intervention, ALIMA is following its patients on a mid- and long-term basis, in order to establish a reconstructive surgery program and to try to preserve the members of the wounded that are curated.

A data collect has been set up since the first week of ALIMA’s presence in Port-au-Prince. The analysis of the huge numbers of wounded and the following of them makes ALIMA participating to the debate of the taking charge of orthopedic traumas in difficult contexts.

ALIMA is also dealing with a new group of patients treated in the first weeks after the earthquake by other actors of international emergency that have now left the country for the main part. This new group will allow us to make a comparison between the different approaches of treatment.

This evaluation of the importance of post-emergency care will feed the public debate on the medical choices that are made during the conditions of emergency; we – and other ONGs – will then be able to take important consequences for future operations.

The Sutra study, realized in partnership with the Agence Nationale de Recherche (France), takes it name from the French words “SUivi et TRAitement”, i.e. “Follow-up and Treatment”, and is especially addressed to the members trauma when a massive affluence of wounded occurs in difficult contexts. It aims at:

1. Collecting data necessary to evaluate the members trauma treatments from a large sample and in a longitudinal follow-up;

2. Discussing the methodologies that allow comparing the different treatments that are made, and evaluate in detail their ethical and economical implications;

3. Promoting a clever management of the follow-up of the wounded of the seism.

This evaluation of a medical decision is essential in an ethical point of view; but it is also very important in understanding the performance of a health system as well as in fighting poverty. Besides ethics, such an attitude also regards the place of the quality of life during the preliminary evaluations of a medical decision. The management of a health system and the place of the poorest people in this system are central in that perspective.

Sutra² in Figures

Budget : 500.000 euros in three years

Partners : Clinique Lambert, LEM laboratory, The Agence National de Recherche

180 Patients