Olympic prep?

On any given day, there is no predicting how many patients will come to Visitation Clinic for help.  Neither can we foretell who the patients will be, or how far they will travel, or what their needs will be.  So our staff is accustomed to the unexpected.  But this past week, we were all surprised to receive a particularly unusual patient with an fractured wrist.  The patient was our own medical director, Dr. JF.  Everyone who knows him recognizes that he is probably the most risk adverse person in VHF.  He is known for his safe driving, for his promotion of preventative medicine and educating the staff and patients about reducing risk and exposure to disease.  And how did he sustain his injury?  Playing football (i.e. soccer).   Now this was not the normal pick-up game of football that one sees all over Haiti on any sized parcel of land, street or alley.  No, this was on our own field with a group of local youths that Dr. JF works with and coaches.  Since formal coaching is rare is rural Haiti, the fact that there is the making of a local team is, in fact, just one more example of how Visitation Clinic is improving life in our area of Haiti. 

Nonetheless, the injury did require surgery this past weekend, and we understand that the procedure was successful.  So we send Dr. JF our condolences and well wishes for a speedy recovery.   And we can't help envisioning a future Haiti where serious disease and other injuries have diminished to such an extent that our major concern will be the occassional sports injury.  Perhaps we can even dream of a future Olympics held in Haiti, centered around Visitation Clinic which has become known as the the thereupitic sports center of the Carribean.  When this time comes, we do hope that everyone will remember that Dr. JF paved the way, even if it wasn't necessarily in the manner that he planned. 

Trucking

Ever wonder how we get supplies and equipment to the clinic?  Sometimes this isn't an easy task.  There are no routine delivery services like FedEx or UPS.  There isn't even any mail delivery in rural Haiti.  So when equipment and supplies are shipped from the US on a container, our administrator has to hire someone with a big truck that is willing to drive the 70 miles.  Well, the truck came today with a wide variety of cargo.  It included dental equipment, 600 buckets for water purifiers that will be distributed to families, office supplies and even four tires for our vehicle.  How do we get all this stuff in the first place?  Well, some is donated, but most things we have to buy.  It is only by contributions from generous supporters that we are able to do so.  In appreciation to them, we are posting these photos showing where their money is going.  We also wanted to share the wisdom of our Haitian truck driver below.  In English it is:  "With God, nothing is impossible" 

Quarrelling with Flannery O'Connor

is usually not advised.  But she did claim that good men are hard to find.  We're not convinced.  For instance we do know that this summer three pretty good women have found us and are volunteer interns at Visitation Clinic.  Today we welcomed our latest arrival, Dr. Sristi.  She is a recent MPH graduate from Johns Hopkins University  who also has a medical degree from India where she worked at a rural clinic.  Even though she aspires toward a career working with the world's refugees and displaced persons, she agreed to spend a week at Visitation Clinic assessing the Maternal and Child Health needs in our region.  We are delighted to have her.  We were are also intrigued by the circumstantial way that she found out about us.  It turns out that a professor at Georgia Tech had become aware of our clinic, and also had worked with her husband.  Not only did he make the connections, he even has volunteered to cover the week's costs.  So, Ms. O'Connor, you may have been mistaken. 

Planning a Hospital

Ever wonder what all the board members and volunteers are doing in the US to support VHF's mission in Haiti?  Well, currently we are spending a great deal of effort planning our next steps. In particular, we have a very active group that is laboring over the question of how to design and build a cost-effective surgical center that will be more effective and sustainable than the standard hospital.  This is the big challenge in Haiti as well as throughout the developing world.   There are, unfortunately, too many empty hospitals throughout the world that were built but couldn't be sustained.  For instance, a survey of a few large hospitals in Haiti shows that their yearly operating costs can be 2/3 thirds of the initial building costs.   We hope to do much better by not overbuilding and by intelligent design.  Right now we are in the phase of soliciting comments from medical professionals and others who have worked at the clinic this year.