Me and Grace, my fellow nurse, hanging out in Jubilee with her best bud, Ifocoeur.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Clinic nurse, ravine nurse, orphanage nurse
Another medical project under my supervision here in Gonaives is an orphanage of 26 children run by missionary friends from the Philippines. The Genada's have lived in Gonaives for 18 years and have recently started their second orphanage. The first was washed out in the 2008 flood and those children were moved permanently to Sherrie's, in Port-au-Prince.
We got physicals on all the children, along with social histories, to create files on each one. Most of them are moderately underweight and we found a couple minor cases of pneumonia, a 10 year old with seizure disorder and developmental delay, and one child with asthma. One of the older boys has a perforated ear drum and chronic ear infections - we're treating him and looking for an ENT surgeon to come repair his ear. We have no ENTs in Haiti.
There was only one child whose nutritional status worried me: JohnLove. He's 6 years old and only weighs 29 pounds. For a little perspective, my friend's 3 1/2 year old son weighs 35 pounds. I've started him on peanut butter supplements and like all the other children, he has received deworming pills and daily vitamins. We aren't supposed to have favorites, but JohnLove and his little brother, Evensky, are mine.
Accepting responsability for a score of children means frequent visits. I've been walking or biking to the orphanage at least 2 or 3 times a week to deliver meds, bandage a dog bite, deal with some break-through seizures, and to just check on kids. I don't mind - it gives me more opportunities to get to know the children and for them to become at ease with me. Which is important because soon we will have to take them all out for HIV tests...
We got physicals on all the children, along with social histories, to create files on each one. Most of them are moderately underweight and we found a couple minor cases of pneumonia, a 10 year old with seizure disorder and developmental delay, and one child with asthma. One of the older boys has a perforated ear drum and chronic ear infections - we're treating him and looking for an ENT surgeon to come repair his ear. We have no ENTs in Haiti.
There was only one child whose nutritional status worried me: JohnLove. He's 6 years old and only weighs 29 pounds. For a little perspective, my friend's 3 1/2 year old son weighs 35 pounds. I've started him on peanut butter supplements and like all the other children, he has received deworming pills and daily vitamins. We aren't supposed to have favorites, but JohnLove and his little brother, Evensky, are mine.
Accepting responsability for a score of children means frequent visits. I've been walking or biking to the orphanage at least 2 or 3 times a week to deliver meds, bandage a dog bite, deal with some break-through seizures, and to just check on kids. I don't mind - it gives me more opportunities to get to know the children and for them to become at ease with me. Which is important because soon we will have to take them all out for HIV tests...
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
How to help Providence Hospital
If you would like to partner with us to get Providence Hospital the supplies and medications that they need (see my most recent post), you can donate at muchministries.org via PayPal. Just include a note in the Comments box indicating that you would like your gift to go towards medical supplies for the hospital.
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much!
Monday, January 23, 2012
Providence Hospital
One of my roles in Gonaives is to help Much Ministries build working relationships with the existing medical community. We want to be able to improve the quality of care all over the city, not just in Jubilee at our own clinic, and that involves getting to know the strengths, weaknesses and needs of the city's hospitals and clinics.
I spent most of last week doing recon in the ER of Providence Hospital. After my first day winning the staff's favor, I was joined by an ER doctor from Georgia. Our final diagnosis was that although the hospital would benefit from continuing education, the pressing need is for simple supplies. For example, the 2 room, 12 bed ER has only one trash can. They were allotted one box of gloves for an entire day - I mean one box for a staff of 3 nurses, 4 doctors, and 6 nursing students. The ER has no fans and in the whole department, there is only one chair for the average 20 family members who are visiting patients.
The hospital pharmacy was hard for me to stomach. Compare these bare shelves...
...to our fully stocked shelves at the Jubilee clinic!
For the sake of privacy, I only took photos wherever there were no patients, but you can imagine the rest. This is a bed in the post-op ward. The hospital cannot provide sheets or towels, so each patient's family is responsible to bring them. The family also feeds the patient, bathes him, and handles the bedpan or the long walk to the bathroom.
This is the only sink in the ER. I never saw it used for actual handwashing.
In the men's internal medicine ward, this is the sink.
The pediatric ward.
And the hospital's resident goat.
The situation at Providence is a direct result of the floods that devastated Gonaives in 2004 and 2008, washing away or destroying much of their equipment such as oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, IV poles and most of their pharmacy stock. It also forced them to move from the hospital to their current home: a large warehouse. Furthermore, Providence is the government hospital for the whole region and it is sorely underfunded. Dr Honore, the director, is truly doing the best possible with such limited resources. I am also very impressed by the nurses I've befriended in the ER; some of them haven't received a salary in months, but they keep working. They also share their food and drink with patients who don't have family to care for them.
We are doing what little we can to help. Extra supplies from our clinic such as gloves and IV bags were delivered the hospital 2 weeks ago. We gave them a nebulizer and we are currently gathering funds to buy trash cans, fans, chairs, oxygen tanks, and basic medications. It's always fun to have true needs met in a visible manner but even better is sitting with a couple nurses and just hearing them out. Even if we are only able to provide a tenth of what they need, they have been given a voice and that matters.
I spent most of last week doing recon in the ER of Providence Hospital. After my first day winning the staff's favor, I was joined by an ER doctor from Georgia. Our final diagnosis was that although the hospital would benefit from continuing education, the pressing need is for simple supplies. For example, the 2 room, 12 bed ER has only one trash can. They were allotted one box of gloves for an entire day - I mean one box for a staff of 3 nurses, 4 doctors, and 6 nursing students. The ER has no fans and in the whole department, there is only one chair for the average 20 family members who are visiting patients.
The hospital pharmacy was hard for me to stomach. Compare these bare shelves...
...to our fully stocked shelves at the Jubilee clinic!
For the sake of privacy, I only took photos wherever there were no patients, but you can imagine the rest. This is a bed in the post-op ward. The hospital cannot provide sheets or towels, so each patient's family is responsible to bring them. The family also feeds the patient, bathes him, and handles the bedpan or the long walk to the bathroom.
This is the only sink in the ER. I never saw it used for actual handwashing.
In the men's internal medicine ward, this is the sink.
The pediatric ward.
And the hospital's resident goat.
The situation at Providence is a direct result of the floods that devastated Gonaives in 2004 and 2008, washing away or destroying much of their equipment such as oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, IV poles and most of their pharmacy stock. It also forced them to move from the hospital to their current home: a large warehouse. Furthermore, Providence is the government hospital for the whole region and it is sorely underfunded. Dr Honore, the director, is truly doing the best possible with such limited resources. I am also very impressed by the nurses I've befriended in the ER; some of them haven't received a salary in months, but they keep working. They also share their food and drink with patients who don't have family to care for them.
We are doing what little we can to help. Extra supplies from our clinic such as gloves and IV bags were delivered the hospital 2 weeks ago. We gave them a nebulizer and we are currently gathering funds to buy trash cans, fans, chairs, oxygen tanks, and basic medications. It's always fun to have true needs met in a visible manner but even better is sitting with a couple nurses and just hearing them out. Even if we are only able to provide a tenth of what they need, they have been given a voice and that matters.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Gonaives' first stop light!
I know that might be hard to imagine, but we just got our first stop lights a few weeks ago in anticipation for President Martelly's visit on January 1st. People are fascinated by them. I mean, truly fascinated. There were crowds watching them being set into place and crowds watching them change color on the first few days. Everyone stops - cars, trucks, taptaps, motorcycles, bicycles, even some pedestrians - and they stop about 100 feet back from the red light, as if they're afraid it will smite them for getting too close.
The Jubilee teenagers were particularly funny: "Let me explain this to you, Keziah. When it's red, you have to stop. But when it turns green, you can go." I'm glad they enlightened me; now someone should enlighten them that you can only go when YOUR light becomes green. Even though the angle of the street lets you see when the opposing traffic has a green light, that doesn't mean that the light applies to you too!
Friday, January 20, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Earthquake - second anniversary
The best and worst part of the anniversary of the earthquake was my visit to the mass grave. Tens of thousands of victims were taken by dump truck to this barren hillside thirty minutes outside the city. Among them were 3 of my neighbors, 5 of my child patients, a colleague, and at least 4 strangers who died under my care during that first awful night.
In Creole, the word "sonje" means 'to remember', but it also means 'to miss'. As if it is impossible to remember people we love without also missing them.
Ben, Lovenide, Peterson, Memene, Nicky, Chantal, TiPikan, Milo, Dieulifete - we remember you. We miss you.
In Creole, the word "sonje" means 'to remember', but it also means 'to miss'. As if it is impossible to remember people we love without also missing them.
Ben, Lovenide, Peterson, Memene, Nicky, Chantal, TiPikan, Milo, Dieulifete - we remember you. We miss you.
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