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January 2007 Medical
Clinic Trip
We just returned from our
annual medical team trip to Haiti. There were 5 of us: Janine Flood,
Nate Brady, Connie Ray, Judy Laing, and Tracee Karaffa. We spent 4 busy
days in the clinic and one day on the road, purchasing art and touring
local hospitals we hope to refer to when patients cannot be treated in
Dumay.
Despite the horrible (in many
ways worsening) situation in Haiti, the clinic continues to expand and
offer more services. We saw ~ 1000 patients during our January trip.
Dr. Janine fFlood saw about 250 eye patients, and Nate Brady (a
pediatrics resident from the Columbus Children’s Hospital), Haitian
doctors, and I saw about 750 medical patients.
We stayed at St. Joseph’s
Guest house in Petionville, where we enjoyed 2 performances by the young
men at St. Joseph’s, “Godspell” and the Resurrection Dance Co. dance
production. We also enjoy the company at St. Joseph’s, but the guest
house is too far from the clinic to rely on staying there in the long
run.
In the past few months we've
partnered with another group, Children's Medical Missions West, that
specializes in bringing children to the U.S. for surgery or treatments
they cannot obtain in Haiti. One of our patients is undergoing a series
of surgeries for clef palate and we have 4 more we're working on
bringing to the U.S. who need orthopedic and urological surgeries
The HIV program has really
taken off. We have over 20 patients who are doing well. In March we
will take blood samples of all our HIV patients to see how we're doing
and adjust their medications. Zanmi Lasante will take the blood to
their labs and run the tests on their equipment, at no cost to us. We
find we need to expand the HIV feeding program to cover everyone in the
household, because the food meant for the HIV patient is gone the first
few days of the month. We need to train the next set of HIV community
health workers to support the expanding number of patients.
Medications and supplies are
increasing in price—because we are seeing more patients and transport
costs have escalated (our quarterly med orders have gone from ~$4,000 to
~$8,000). I submitted an order for IDA (Netherlands) last week. It's
still the cheapest source of meds, even with the shipping fees.
The eye clinic is running
smoothly. We have a great technician, Charles, whom Janine has been
able to train to screen patients and fit them with glasses. He
communicates with us regularly. Our Ophthalmologist Dr. Houdicourt,
sees patients one day a month.
We're working on a couple of
projects to bring the Haitian arts to Granville. There is a wonderful
professional dance troop made up of boys who were once street children
in Port-au-Prince, the "Resurrection Dance Company" of St. Joseph's. We
hope to bring them to Granville via Denison University. The art
show/sale will be the first weekend in May. There is a Haitian theater
major at OSU who has written and performs a one woman play on life in
Haiti, Joelle Joseph. We hope to bring her to Granville to perform this
summer—we have no venue yet, but have asked for funds from the Granville
Foundation to do this.
Our head nurse in Dumay has
breast cancer (at 44 years old). We've paid for surgery and chemo in
Haiti, but now she needs radiation therapy which is not available in
Haiti. We are looking for a radiation oncologist willing to donate
their services in the central Ohio area. Once that is arranged, we will
obtain a medical Visa for Nurse Carmel and bring her to Granville to
stay during her therapy.
Womenade is this Wednesday,
January 31 at Nellie Pallagi's house. We have several children who's
care givers (often not their parents) have asked me to bring
clothes—they only own the clothes on their backs. I plan to ask women
at the meeting to put together outfits for each child and bring them to
me before I return to Haiti in March.
We have a donation from JCC
of new laptops for the clinic. Right now I'm working on computerized
charting. I'll be able to have a laptop at my work station while I see
patients. For starters, I'm only going to computerize the HIV patients,
but eventually, we'll put all our regular patients in the computer. We
will also have a computer in the pharmacy and in the eye clinic.
I've been working with people
experienced in grant writing—we hope to find a grant big enough to cover
the cost of building a bunk house next to the clinic. We are now
traveling to and from Petionville (a 40 minute ride if water is low and
we can go through the river, but at least 1 1/2 hours if the water is
high). We have plans via an architect in Columbus, Othelda Spencer, who
has volunteered his services. Richard Downs is helping to work on the
plans and will help oversee the construction in Haiti. When we have a
bunkhouse next to the clinic, our risk will be greatly decreased, since
travel on the roads is our riskiest activity.
The Bethel School continues
to serve the children of Campeche Dumay. We continue to support the
clean water project in Demier, and hope to bring a medical team to
Demier in 2007.
-- Tracee
tracee@healingartmissions.org |
