I have only been in Les Cayes, Haiti for about a week and already the Haitian team at HIC hospital and the family I am staying with have taught me so much. The hospital is completely Haitian run - administrators, doctors, nurses, nurse midwives, pharmacists, social worker... you name it and it's taken care of by Haitian leadership. I am constantly amazed at what outcomes they are capable of with very little resources. Our CHI volunteer team isn't the only one to put together mobile clinics. I spoke with the social worker at Port Salut Hospital this week and discovered they have been hosting mobile clinics in Les Anglais once per month for the last few months because they recognized a need there. The social worker told me how even though they are short on funds they had to do what they could to address the needs of patients in Les Anglais. They will stretch funds as much as they need if it means Les Anglais patients can have more access to the care that they deserve.
At HIC, Dr. Cleonas is busy with overseeing Dartmouth infectious disease project in Les Cayes and seeing his own patients. Yet, he will often quietly reach over the desk we share as I make my handwritten notes or emails in French to the Haitian medical personnel I am working with and correct my spelling and grammar errors. He continues to help me improve my French. The social worker is busy tracking down patients who miss appointments and is helping train me on how to work with his Community Health Workers to track down HIV+ patients who were lost to follow up. He and his team are working hard so we can get these patients back into care and back on their needed medications.
Sure, I could spend a lot of time explaining certain gaps in the system, certain types of diseases that are treatable in the states, but have poor outcomes here, but this week I am impressed by the positives. I am impressed by how the Haitian healthcare workers can have so little and yet still accomplish what they do. They run prenatal clinics, manage difficult infectious diseases, perform surgery, are building a whole new ob/gyn center as they try to improve maternal health outcomes (note to self - convince my roommate to do some educational work here when she's done with her residency), and just opened a brand new lab complete with high tech equipment including the soon-to-arrive GeneXpert (http://www.pepfar.gov/press/releases/2012/196090.htm).
And then there's Edward and Djeune. They continue to teach me what it means to truly be a humanitarian. I live in the apartment above their house, where they live with their 4 children. The two oldest boys are adopted and the youngest boy and girl are their biological children. The oldest boy they found as a baby, malnourished, in a shoebox under a bridge, shortly after they got married. They spent 6 months in the hospital nursing him back to good health, took him home, gave him a name and an age. The love for others didn't stop there. They adopted another son, they run two orphanages in their "spare time," and work with NGO's from Iowa to help reconstruct villages that were swept away by Hurricane Sandy. I have personally seen Edward buy the food of the person standing behind him in the grocery line, and he is constantly on the phone helping people with favors that they need. When I return home in 6 weeks, I hope I can show my family, friends, patients, heck even strangers, just a small fraction of the love I have seen Edward and Djeune shower onto those around them.
I have a feeling that while I learned a lot this week, the rest of my short time in Haiti is going to be filled with many more lessons. Most likely the learning curve has just begun...
Pictures of Edwards and Djeune's sons. Don't let the cute, angelic smiles fool you... they are officially on summer vacation and ready to cause some mischief ;)
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