73 legs, 12 arms -- hundreds more to go

DESCHAPELLES, HAITI -- Seventy-three legs, 12 arms.

If anyone's counting, that's how many prosthetic limbs Jay Tew of Baton Rogue, La., has turned out for earthquake amputees in Haiti in the past three weeks.

The 38-year-old clinician and his crew have been working dawn to dark at the Hopital Albert Schweitzer, an 80-bed medical center more than 60 miles from the country's capital city, Port-au-Prince.

In a clinic housed in a converted classroom, Tew has been fitting, forming, sanding, painting and testing limb after limb for the steady stream of amputees who've made it to the rural outpost.

"I don't think we're going to stop seeing new patients for some time," said Tew, a regional manager for Hanger Orthopedic Group. "They say there may be hundreds of people here once the flood gates open up."

With the help of U.S. prosthetic maker Hanger, the rural hospital founded by American philanthropist William Larimer Mellon, Jr. is rapidly becoming a center for rehabilitation -- and hope -- for Haiti's amputees.

"If I can say there's an oasis in Haiti, we're in it," says Tew, glancing around the spare clinic with its cinder block walls and cement floors that wouldn't normally constitute luxury.

So far, the hospital has been able to manufacture and deliver vital prosthetic limbs for men, women and children, patients who test their new arms and legs by dancing to music and kicking soccer balls each evening

On a hot, humid evening, more than 30 patients and their family members lounged on the porches of eight small block houses in L'Escale, an area set aside to shelter amputees who have nowhere else to go.

They laughed and chatted in animated Haitian Creole, teasing, telling stories and calling greetings to passersby. One 10-year-old boy raced to see how fast he could get across the stony ground on the crutches he'll use until his new leg is ready.

"One doesn't have right leg, one doesn't have a left leg, one doesn't have a hand," said Ian Rawson, the HAS director. "They're all there together, playing music. They've created a lovely community."

It's a community forged out of tragedy and need. Even before the earthquake, an estimated 40,000 to 64,000 Haitians were so disabled by trauma or disease they needed prostheses, leg braces or other rehabilitation services, said Robert Kistenberg, who heads the U.S. chapter of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics. The earthquake added another 4,000 to 6,000 amputees to the toll in an instant, according to estimates by the aid group Handicap International and the Haitian government.

"In Haiti, they were not able to meet the needs of the people even before the earthquake," Kistenberg said.

That's where Tew and his staff come in. They volunteered to spend three months at HAS, fabricating and fitting limbs as part of Hanger's pledge to create an ongoing rehabilitation program training Haitian technicians and treating amputees now and in the future.

"The key is a sustainable center," said Tew. "It's not to come in and make a lot of legs and leave."

A father of three girls ages 8, 10 and 12, Tew said he did not hesitate when Hanger asked him to go. In fact, he'd already discussed the possibility with his wife, Shannon, as they watched early television coverage of the earthquake.

"I looked at Shannon and I said, 'I'm going to Haiti,' and she said, 'Yes, I know you are.'"

For her part, Shannon Tew, 40, said she couldn't deny the need, or her husband's desire to help. A graduate of Northwestern University's Prosthetics-Orthotics program, Tew had previously volunteered to help amputees in Mexico and is considered an expert in the treatment of military amputees.

"I think it's all he could ever think of and dream of doing," Shannon Tew said.

It's part of a larger dream for HAS, too.

Founded in 1956 by a son of one of America's wealthiest families, the hospital has logged a half-century history of ministering to the medical and social needs of the poorest residents of Haiti's Central Plateau.

Mellon, heir to the Andrew Mellon family banking and oil fortunes, started the hospital after becoming enthralled in midlife with the medical missionary work of Albert Schweitzer.

Mellon and his second wife, Gwen Grant Mellon, worked out a deal with the Haitian government to take over an abandoned fruit plantation in the rugged Artibonite River Valley. The hospital became the hub for care for the region of about 300,000 people, where poverty and disease are rampant.

It's a legacy now assumed by Rawson, 70, one of Gwen Mellon's three children from a previous marriage. Rawson retired from a career as a hospital system administrator in Pennsylvania to take over where his mother left off.

His task has been magnified by the aftermath of the quake, which may propel rural HAS into becoming a central player in the nation's reconfigured health care system. Haiti's president, Rene Preval, has called for decentralizing the country's infrastructure for health, education and jobs. Under such a plan, HAS would become one of eight rehabilitation centers around the country.

"This is the hardest work we've ever done," Rawson said of the months since Jan. 12. "But it's the most rewarding."