Belle Glade, FL –
After three days of caring for victims of this hard-hit community, he came away moved by their gratitude in the midst of such pain and devastation.
“The quietness of their suffering is hard to describe,” he said. “They were thankful for the small amount we were doing, and they had the willingness to sit and wait until we could get to them. There was very little complaining.”
Dr. Kairys estimates he and the Project Medishare team treated approximately 200 patients during his time in Haiti, providing care in an environment lacking key medical facilities, such as operating rooms. Many patients needed immediate surgery, but without proper surgical tools and equipment, there was no way for the surgeon to do his work. For Dr. Kairys, a father of three, there was an emotional impact caring for the children who found their way to the facility, some with severe injuries such as open fractures and large tissue loss. Many had lost both of their parents in the earthquake.
“We really didn’t ‘treat’ patients. That was the problem. We mostly provided comfort care to those that came to our facility. That’s all we could do,” he said.
This kind of medical inequality is what drove Dr. Kairys to surgery as a specialty. While in medical school, he traveled to Haiti through Project Medishare and saw early on that many people, especially those in the rural areas of the small island nation, were dying simply because they didn’t have access to routine life-saving surgical procedures. If he became a surgeon, he reasoned, he could do all of it – treat and operate.
Lakeside Medical Center, Palm Beach County’s only public hospital, provides an opportunity for Dr. Kairys to care for an underserved medical community. Since leaving private practice and joining the medical team at Lakeside Medical Center in 2007, he has been providing surgical care to a rural population that struggles with key medical issues. Having a new, technologically-advanced facility allows him to work more efficiently.
“Lakeside Medical Center makes my job a lot easier because people with acute problems can be treated quickly,” he said. “While the community does need better preventive care, the hospital is able to provide very good care for a wide range of health issues.”
Lakeside Medical Center, which serves residents in rural western Palm Beach County and surrounding regions, is supportive of the work Dr. Kairys does both at home and in the now-devastated homeland of so many in their area.
“We are fortunate to have Dr. Kairys as part of our medical staff,” said Brian P. Gibbons, Jr., Hospital Administrator. “His strong surgical skills and the fact that he speaks Creole, along with his dedication to serve all the residents in this community, make him an invaluable asset to our growing medical team.”
Dr. Kairys was featured, along with his wife, Junia, on the front page of the January 19th edition of The Palm Beach Post in an article about his volunteer work in Haiti. Read the article.
About the Health Care District: The Health Care District of Palm Beach County provides health coverage programs for uninsured residents, a nationally recognized Trauma System, dedicated nurses in nearly 170 public schools, a pharmacy operation, a long-term skilled nursing and rehabilitation center, and acute care hospital services at Lakeside Medical Center, the county’s only public hospital, serving the rural western Palm Beach County communities along the southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee.