This is Martin Harrison's blog for Wednesday 20th

It is one week since the earthquake struck the Caribbean island of Haiti. If there are two words which summarise what I have seen and experienced since I arrived here last Friday, they are ‘resilience’ and ‘improvisation’. I am struck by the Haitian people as they make life continue against all odds. At the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital where I am based many staff have lost family members and close friends, yet they have not downed tools since the first day as they seek to help others live. The surgeons, doctors, nurses, water engineers and caretakers each play their own vital part, tirelessly working from dawn until late into the night, improvising with whatever comes to hand as certain medical supplies run low.

The emergency response team demonstrates equally remarkable resilience and improvisation. One of the HCJB Global surgeons even gave his own blood during the middle of the operation he himself was performing on a woman with severe internal bleeding to save her life. We urgently require stocks of blood. The hospital does not have any at all. The woman died later because there was no blood for the transfusion. The hospital is home to two of only five hospital-based operating theatres that remain operational in Port Au Prince. Since yesterday, we have started receiving emergency cases from refugee camps set up by the US military. Certain essential supplies have run out such as plates for mending fractures and crutches. We urgently await their arrival. Surgeons are improvising by cutting pins in half to make them go further as they operate on many fractured limbs. Some patients are still waiting for essential operations one week after the earthquake. A strong aftershock at 0605 local time this morning (1105 GMT) sent panic through the hospital.

There is growing concern about the spread of disease. Few of the patients have been vaccinated against tetanus and we desperately await arrival of vaccinations.