Second visiting team

This past week and this upcoming week we have a new team of medical volunteers working at the clinic.  Lead by Dr. Thomas C. who is an MD with over twenty years of experience in internal medicine.  He is accompanied by his son who is currently in medical school. 

We are extremely fortunate to have our visitors these two weeks.  Our clinic often sees over 80 patients a day and it would have been very difficult for our intern, Dr. Delva, to handle this while our Dr. JF is on vacation.  But Dr. Tom has been able to jump in and treat over 40 patients on most days.   

Indiana Group at Clinic

This week we have the priviledge of welcoming a group of five medical professionals from Indiana.  They have generously volunteered to work at  the clinic while some of our staff are on vacation.  So far this week they have treated over 80 patients on some days.  Here are a couple photos showing their work this week.

More road news

In contrast to the previous post, this past week has been bright and sunny and the news we've just received has been the same.  Perhaps it can only be appreciated if we recount the series of events that lead up to it.   The story began almost a year ago at a Nashville fund raiser.  During the post-event clean up, a chance conversation began with one of our dedicated volunteers.  The topic was the need for a better access road at our clinic.  But, unlike previous conversations on this topic, this time it took a surprising turn.  Our volunteer offered to contact a friend who was a manager at Caterpillar.  The manager, in turn, enthusiastically offered to contact a Cat associate in the Caribbean.  This man made it his mission to talk to the Cat dealer in Haiti, who by email offered to help us.  We met with this gentleman earlier this year and he offered to contact a close friend who was building a road near our clinic.   This past week, all of this calling and emailing payed off.  As the photo shows, there is now a large crew and several machines working on our road.  The local mayor has even assisted by contacting local property owners so that they know about the work. 

At times people wonder how they can make a difference in Haiti.  The marvelous lesson in this story is that sometimes all it takes is a simple phone call or email to a friend.

Rainy Weather

   







Visitation Clinic is located a quarter-mile up the mountain from the main road.  Our only access is by a dirt road which gets soft and slick when it rains.  During the rainy season (which just ended), our road gets quite muddy.  And here we are using the term "muddy" in the Haitian context - meaning that off-road 4x4's get so bogged down that it litterally takes a dozen men and a boy to get it unstuck.  (See photo)

This can be a serious problem for a busy clinic like ours.  In fact, the reason that our driver attempted to drive the road on the day of the photo was for a patient diagnosed with acute apendicits.  Fortunately, our volunteer road crew prevailed and were able to extract our SUV and get our patient to surgery.  Still, this episode again demonstrated the importance of decent roads in Haiti.