Alberto Lafuente is graduate of the School of Medicine. PHOTO: Manuel Castells

Alberto Lafuente Jiménez, an anesthesiologist from the Clínica Universidad de NavarraThe medical coordinator in Haiti, Alberto Lafuente Jiménez, an anesthesiologist at financial aid , is coordinating the attendance medical contingent sent by Spain to the Caribbean country. Carlos Pastor Idoate, a surgeon from the same hospital, also traveled with him as a medical volunteer. Alberto Lafuente, 37 years old, from Pamplona, married and without children, came as a volunteer member of DYA and of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra to participate in the work of financial aid to alleviate the disaster of more than 100,000 deaths caused by the earthquake of 7.3º Richter in the region of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

The anesthesiologist, graduate of the School of Medicine, left from the airport of Torrejón de Ardoz in one of the three military planes that took off from Spain to Haiti in a first shipment of financial aid urgent. Alberto Lafuente responded to the phone call he received from the head of the AECID (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for the development), under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who requested his participation as coordinator of fifty people who will collaborate in the first work of attendance medical.

Expert in emergency financial aid

This is the fifth international catastrophe in which Dr. Lafuente has volunteered his financial aid services. The previous ones were the war disaster in Afghanistan, as well as those caused by the earthquakes in Pakistan (October 2005), and the two earthquakes in Indonesia (June 2006 and September 2009). His background of financial aid in emergencies, his professional experience as an anesthesiologist at Clínica Universidad de Navarra and his training as Master's Degree of Emergency Systems Management bring together in Alberto Lafuente a unique set of the most suitable characteristics to coordinate Spain's medical attendance in international disasters.

Minutes before leaving, Dr. Lafuente thanked "the great effort invested" by the Clínica Universidad de Navarra by contributing to the financial support of the two doctors during their stay in Haiti, as well as the increased care pressure that their colleagues at specialization program will have to assume selflessly.

"The first medical assistance will consist mainly of attending to numerous fractures, wounds, burns and symptoms of asphyxia. But we will also have to take on primary care medical tasks such as the treatment of basic illnesses subject hypertension or bronchitis which, regardless of the catastrophe, will still be there," he explained.