I spent a week up in the mountains doing a mobile clinic in a village called Cazale.  It was the first time MOH had done a mobile clinic there, so I was a little nervous about a new location but I ended up falling in love with everything about that place!  With a team of five nurses and one doctor, we saw a little shy of 800 patients in four short days.  While we saw many headaches, fevers, flu's, and even a very interesting machete accident, there was one patient who stood out among anyone else I've met in Haiti.

Her mom carried her bundled in layers of crocheted blankets and towels.  She was two weeks old, had been born prematurely, and was failing to thrive.  She hadn't eaten anything in the past week and was in desperate need of medical attention that we could not provide up there.  Her eyes were rolled into the back of her head, her arms the size of my thumb, and her cries were weak, strained, and few and far between.  Each gasp of air she took I was convinced would be her last.  Her very young mom was less than apathetic toward her child's rapidly fading life.

For a multitude of reasons, there wasn't much we could do for her in that moment.  Although seemingly not much of a mother, she was still her mother's daughter after all.  All of the team members stopped what they were doing to lay hands and pray over this baby.  With all eyes filled with tears, we asked God to perform a miracle... Would He please heal this baby, would He please change mom's heart, would He allow us to get this precious child the help she needs.  Legally, all we could do was hope and pray fiercely.  So in that moment and all that night, we did.

We left that afternoon with heavy hearts all knowing that her little body probably couldn't make it through the night.  We also knew that mom was probably not going to sacrifice anything to make the long journey back to the MOH clinic for us to better help her.  We all knew we were leaving that baby there to die.

The next morning as we were pulling out of the gate to head back up into the mountains, we saw them!  They were waiting in line to get to our clinic at the mission.  ave you ever felt so much joy in one instant that you thought somewhere inside of you that something was about to explode?  It was so much more than just an emotion, it was a physical feeling of pressure, relief, tension, and just pure joy!  God had touched mom's heart that night.  One of the nurses felt so overcome with love that he jumped out of the moving canter to run over and kiss mom and the baby.

She brought her baby in, our nurses transferred the baby to the nearest children's medical facility and she is being fed, loved, and nourished this very minute.

I wonder what He has planned for this little girl...

On my last few days in Haiti, I was so blessed to have been part of the first exciting steps towards a brighter future in health education. Last week, Dr. Cheryl van der Mark came to Haiti for the training of our new Health Agents in the first module of our Community Health Program. The Sanitation and Hygiene unit was well received by the women we were training, and as I assisted in the classes I really began to understand the challenges in everyday life that Haitian communities face. In terms of hygiene, here you cannot take for granted that there are latrines, showers and taps readily available. These women understand and brought to my attention the struggles in what we view as simple steps, such as washing your hands without running water, or keeping food stored properly.

I was very encouraged by the ingenuity of the ideas stemming from this program. These are problems that we must deal with and overcome. The creativity and intelligence of these women was inspirational. God has told us our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are to honour him with our bodies and our actions. To know that this message of sanitation and hygiene is going to reach many people, change lives and allow communities to live healthier as God intended them to has really touched me.

As one of the women said, these problems will not be fixed overnight but through hard work, prayer and God’s blessing we can do this. I believe that this is true. Changes such as these require resources, education, cooperation and community involvement. I have every faith that these women, their community and the people of Haiti have what it takes to improve their health status, with our support and prayer.


-Heather Drouin

This is a very exciting time for the vaccination program at Mission of Hope. The Haitian Ministry of Health supplied the medical clinic with 5,000 doses of Typhoid vaccine. At first, this seemed like an impossible task – to administer 5,000 doses in one month. However, it is happening before our eyes. First, a medical team was able to get 4,800 of the required syringes donated and was able to bring all of the rest of the supplies needed to give the vaccines. That team administered over 2,000 doses last week. This week, the staff has been busy vaccinated the rest of the MOH school children – giving another 400 doses. Next week and the second week of November, other medical teams will be visiting multiple locations to administer the remaining doses. It now seems as though the demand and ability to give the vaccine will be more than the 5,000 doses! It is amazing to see how God always provides.

Note: This is a blog entry from our Prosthetist at Mission of Hope. He is from Japan and is still learning English, but wanted to share all of the amazing things that are happening at the prosthetics lab.

MOH has been given a lot of donations. Prosthetics lab also has received a lot of materials and used components, and other things. We have to say our much gratitude for donations. Actually, we have been running our lab without problems since the establishment and that’s all because of donations.

You can imagine that it costs a lot to make a prosthesis by buying new components. In case of US and Japan, the price of one prosthesis can build a new house in Haiti. If it is for above knee, it would be able to build two houses in Haiti. Therefore, at MOH we use different, cheaper methods with donations.

Prosthetic component is always big problem in underdeveloped countries. They often get used donations from all over the world. But most of them can’t receive enough and can’t produce prosthesis, so sometimes they have to close labs.

In developed countries, generally prosthetics user receives new prosthetic every 3-5 years with health insurance or some things. After that, most of old used components will be taken to a trash box, even though they are still useful. They have still worth to be legs for someone.

I think recycle is good to reduce trash and makes the earth clean. That’s good ECO, and as you know, Japanese really likes Ecology. Also, we can provide prosthetics for more amputees. To keep prosthetics lab for long time we need those donations from all over the world. Everything we do is for Haiti.

Medical facilities in Haiti have always been small in numbers. Many Haitians have lived without health care most of their lives. They have had to rely on their community and family. Death is commonplace and life expectancy is short. There has always been a need for medical missions here.

In January 2010, Haiti had its worst disaster ever, the earthquake. The already suffering people now had an excessive amount of death, injury and illness to deal with. People and organizations from all over the world came to Haiti in large numbers to help. They did help and many Haitians got the immediate help that they so desperately needed. Now it’s a year and a half later and Haiti still has the same needs it has always had. All those who came - well a lot of them have left. In addition, many Haitian medical facilities destroyed in the earthquake were not replaced. Every month the Mission of Hope Clinic calls all the facilities it works with to see if they are still in operation. The original list is now been cut almost in half.

Have the needs changed? Yes, it has but it’s changed from the horrible trauma of earthquake victims to the daily healthcare problems many Haitians already had.

Mission of Hope (MOH) has committed to helping the local Haitian villages that surround it with the daily medical clinic, plus helping local villages that aren’t close enough to easily travel to the clinic by providing mobile medical clinics. MOH has been in Haiti for a very long time and is not leaving anytime soon. MOH was here before the earthquake and after, seeing patients every day. When a patient is too sick or injured and needs more care or observation time than we can give, they get transported to a facility that can. They get transported by one of two MOH ambulances. These ambulances are fully stocked advanced life support units and are staffed by a medical professional on every transfer. This is another sign of the faithful commitment that MOH is giving to Haiti.

At this time, MOH is also building a hospital to support Haiti by being able to bring in North American Surgeons on a regular basis to perform life altering procedures. It will also increase the size and capabilities of the current urgent care center. As much as we talk and spread the good word we are fully committed to the works that go along with serving God.

If anyone is interested in donating their time or funds to help the medical side of Mission of Hope please contact our US office!

Rick Malmstrom NREMTP, CCEMTP
Emergency Services Manager
Mission of Hope Haiti
 

Note: This is a blog entry from our Prosthetist at Mission of Hope. He is from Japan and is still learning English, but wanted to share all of the amazing things that are happening at the prosthetics lab.

Today I’m going to talk about a boy. His name is Cousy, 10 years old. We met him 2 weeks ago, he came to visit to our lab with his dad. When I saw him at first, I wondered his condition. Right leg is amputated and left leg is deformed like a leg rotated to medial. I thought he had congenital problem, for example it’s cerebral palsy. But I was wondering why he got to cut right leg…Car accident? Congenital? Or other problem??

As I asked his father, he told us that, “My son was a born cerebral palsy that both legs were deformed. So a doctor decided to cut one side 3 years ago, because bilateral legs deformed prevent to walk easy. So he got amputation surgery”. I couldn’t believe that. Certainly his left leg has problem, but it can be corrected with some knee brace. If he had bilateral legs deformed, he didn’t need to get surgery, the doctor should have selected to make brace for bilateral. This is big problem in Haiti, means Haitian doctors lack enough knowledge for rehabilitation.

After we made a prosthesis and a brace for him, so finally he got walking without crutches. Left side also can step straight and put his weight without problem. His smile made us happy, but I wanted the doctor not to decide to amputate, to prescribe bilateral brace. He is getting growth everyday every year, so we’re going to support him all the time.

Note:  This is a blog entry from our Prosthetist at Mission of Hope.  He is from Japan and is still learning English, but wanted to share all of the amazing things that are happening at the prosthetics lab.

Hi everyone, nice to meet you. I submit to blog in my bad English first time, please keep reading until the end. At first, thank you for praying for Japanese earthquake victims. We never forget thanks and are going to up slowly with all together.

Actually Nono and David are so hard worker and eager to learn prosthetics. As I’ve been in this island for long time, never seen so hard worker like them. I’m so happy to work together. At first I had to teach them math about parallel and vertical, but they studied a lot of things, and now, they can figure out PTB prosthesis that’s most standard type one. Of course, they just started leaning, must keep to study more, anatomy, kinetics, kinematics, orthopedics, fitting, casting, etc.  Surely, I believe they will be able to clear all and be a best Haitian Prosthetist. I also must study English hard like them.

Number of 12 amputees are living at one village where is close to Dominican Republic. They are isolated, because to access to the capital or MOH is so difficult for them. So we are covering for prosthetic care. We visited there to cast to renewal their prosthesis two weeks ago, and today, we visited again to bring new prosthesis we produced. They were so happy to get new one, also they made us so happy. However, we don’t have enough mobile service for them, beside, there are many same situation in Haiti. We’d like to set this system up as early as we can. I hope those prosthetics care supports them to change their life and stand up by oneself.

Thank you for reading until the end.
  

Our very first summer-long Mission of Hope Haiti Vacation Bible School has begun! Precious Haitian children from neighboring villages are being dropped at our front gate by the busload each morning! We are very excited for this opportunity. We have had about 300 children on average each week, tots to pre-teens. We have 5 rotating stations they go through each day: crafts, bible stories, sports, community health, and meals.

Each week in community health children are learning essential hygiene that will help prevent disease and promote healthy habits. Basic hygiene and health teaching here in Haiti is so valuable. It is wonderful to have this new generation learning at such a young age how to stay healthy. They are learning that God made and cares for their little bodies. Throughout the week children learn how to wash their hands and brush their teeth! They also learn about proper nutrition, the food groups, and the importance of exercise and stretching. They are having so much fun with it! Each week children are returning home to their villages with bars of soap, dental supplies, and new knowledge. We hope that as they return home they will share what they have learned and the impact of this VBS will continue on and on. It is great to see the Lord using VBS as a means to not only teach these little ones about Jesus’ love for them, but also to teach them valuable life skills such as these that will help transform the Nation of Haiti for Christ.

-Lauren Freeman, Medical Intern

Our kids have great smiles, they do, every single one of them. However, a few of these smiles have experienced some wear and tear over the years. We had a number of kids with chipped or broken front teeth, their smiles still beautiful, but with some damage. Micherline especially had some extensive damage from falling face first onto the concrete and breaking 4 front teeth.

That is all changed now! We had a wonderful dentist come down from Florida and she was able to give all these children new smiles by rebuilding their teeth. It was so exciting watching the kids climbing out of the dentist chair testing out their new smiles.

Thanks Dr. Kiara Miro!

Here are some before and after shots!!
 

It has been an exciting week for of the MOH medical clinic! The clinic has been working to become part of the Ministry of Health’s national vaccination program. That work finally came to fruition last week. After the community health nurse, Mis Severe, was trained at a seminar; the vaccinations began. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday immunizations were done at the clinic on site by the Haitian staff. Children age 0-7 and women age 15-49 from the hope house, staff, and surrounding villages were vaccinated. On Friday and Saturday, the vaccination team went to the mountain village of Zorange and on Sunday and Monday to the mountain village of Turpin. Each person was treated according to the Ministry of Health guidelines which included: polio, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, Vitamin A/Zinc (there is a lack of these from dietary sources), Albendazole (for intestinal worms), and enzymes. Oral rehydration salts were also distributed to all vaccinated (used for diarrheal illnesses, including Cholera). All medications were supplied by the Ministry of Health. Although some of the patients seen had been vaccinated before, many never had. Overall, this was a great success for the MOH clinic and a great blessing to all of those who were able to be immunized. This vaccination program will continue and there are already plans being made for the immunization of 5000 people for typhus in October.