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September 2006 Medical
Clinic Trip
The most recent
trip took place in September 2006. The team consisted of Hillary
Dunlevy (medical and public health student, HIV educator), Mary Prince
(nurse), Susan Potter (librarian and pharmacy assistant) and Tracee
Karaffa (doctor)
The trip has a rocky start. Just 2 weeks before the trip began,
Nathan Dieudonne’s sister-in-law and nephew were kidnapped entering
their gate, next door to Wanda and Nathan’s Croix-des-Bouquet home.
Thankfully, they were released nine days later, after two ransoms were
paid.
Our flight to
Port-au-Prince was delayed in Miami when a thunderstorm shut down the
entire airport. American Airlines won’t fly into PAP if they
cannot fly out before dark. By the time the airport opened, there
wasn’t time, so our flight was canceled. We stood in line 4 hours
to get our hotel room.
On the bright
side, we met many interesting people during that wait in line: a German
monk caring for street children in PAP, a Canadian architect designing
and monitoring the construction of community centers throughout Haiti, a
Rwandan UN logistics expert, and Brazilian UN soldiers (they all spoke
perfect English).
We missed church with its wonderful music on Sunday AM, but went to
Dumay that afternoon to unpack and organize the clinic. Mark Hare
with MPP brought a team to Dumay from Hinche to teach the efficient
agricultural techniques they are developing. They spent Sunday
organizing supplies and participants.
Sunday evening we stayed in PAP at St. Joseph’s guest
house--sjfamilyhaiti@hotmail.com-- started by Father Michael
Geilenfeld as a home for boys living on the streets of PAP. He
gives the children hope for the future through a loving home, education,
and the arts. Together, they started a professional dance company called
the “Resurrection Dancers.” We were privileged to see them perform.
We also met Vanessa Carpenter, a founder of Three Angels Children’s
Relief--ThreeAngelsCR@msn.com. They have an orphanage next to
St. Joseph’s that also specializes in getting children to the US for
medical care not available in Haiti. We hope to partner with her
in the future, when we see very ill children in the Dumay clinic.
Monday through Wednesday we worked in the clinic in Dumay. Susan
worked with the Dumay librarian helping to organize the school library.
We did not have the medications we needed. A large medication
order was stuck in customs due to the Bethel Foundation’s difficulty
paying their Haitian taxes. (What is the difference between paying
"ransom" and paying "taxes"?)
We hope to avoid this in the future by shipping our medications to USAID.
We have asked Rep. Sherrod Brown to help us arrange this. The patients
who needed medications acutely were treated, and the rest were given
Rx’s to fill next week (we hope).
We treated 500 pt’s in 4 days of clinic.
Monday and Tuesday night we stayed in Dumay which allowed us to work
late in the clinic without worrying about being off the road before
dark. We ate very well, and slept in their best beds, but it was really
hot. We were happy to get back to the cool air in the higher elevation
of St. Joseph’s.
Thursday we met Dr. Beauvoir, the orthopedic surgeon caring for our
patient Nelio, at the Community Hospital of Petionville. He arranged for
us to meet with the administration of the hospital to discuss future
collaborations with the hospital and our patients.
They have a 2 tiered payment system--one for “community” patients, and
one for “private” patients. The average cost for “community”
surgery is $300-$500. They do an impressive job of caring for
their patients with very few resources. We have a list of supplies
needed by the hospital that we plan to distribute to area hospitals to
request donations. Hillary was dropped off at the airport that
afternoon and we shopped for art for the next art auction.
Friday we finished seeing patients in the clinic. Some patients returned
with X-rays we sent them for earlier in the week. The very ill patients
returned for a follow-up apt.
We walked a mile up the road from the clinic to see another clinic in an
orphanage run by Notre Dame Nuns. We learned about the clinic at St.
Joseph’s. The nuns told us it was started by a nun who is also a
physician. She was sent to Mongolia, and now they fill in with short
term teams from non-profits and occasional UN Dr.’s. We didn’t know of
each other's existence. I hope we can help each other in the
future. They have very limited hours and do not treat HIV. They
also don’t have any specialists, so they can refer their patients with
those needs to our clinic.
-- Tracee
tracee@healingartmissions.org |
