Haiti doctor diary: How can anyone recover from hearing their friends perish?

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No longer will patients have their personal misery on public display as their conditions and requests become increasingly complex.

The 20-year-old girl with hysterical paralysis of her arm, created by the extreme emotion of seeing her school friends crushed to death before her. They did not die together but individually, and over several hours. My patient heard each perish, slowly, painfully, and even talked to one before all fell silent. How can anyone ever recover from this?

Added to these complex cases comes a steady trickle of trauma victims. The dislocated hip, the broken arm and the shin bone pouring pus.

It takes years of experience to know what to do when confronted with the injuries we're facing. Merlin's 12-strong surgical team has decades of collective experience: it's a skill we've honed in earthquakes and disasters the world over. With every successfully saved limb, we're inching closer to a sense of feeling our work is making a difference.

Richard Villar leads a surgical team for Merlin, a British medical aid agency. He works at the Wellington Hospital, London

Haiti emergency appeal

Merlin is a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee. You can donate to the DEC Haiti appeal online at www.dec.org.uk or by calling 0370 60 60 900.

For more information about Merlin's Haiti response please go to: www.merlin.org.uk or call 020 7014 1714.