As we reflect on the Easter season, a time of renewal, hope, and new life - we are grateful to share an update from the clinic. We are blessed by your support and want to report how your funds are helping lives and bringing hope every day. I wanted to send an update sooner, but an unexpected roof replacement required an immense amount of attention! I hope this season finds everyone well.

On Easter Sunday, I was sitting in Oriani church when I was called to the clinic. Our nurse, Mis Vitani, was examining a laboring mom caring twins. She could tell the position was not good for a normal delivery and was recommending transferring to Fon Parisien for c-section. A quick look with our ultrasound confirmed the first baby was in breech position. Fon Parisien is 3 hours down the mountain on rough roads. This is always a difficult decision because many times that rough road has a way of delivering babies, ready or not! Do you try to get closer to a hospital that has more capabilities and risk delivering in the ambulance with fewer resources? Or do you wait and hope you can deliver a breech baby at the clinic without complications? Decisions we are forced to make here. Anyway, we decided Bodie would drive the ambulance and I would ride in the back in case we were forced to deliver on the road. So we loaded up and started bumping down the road. Less than 20 minutes down the road we heard yells to stop the ambulance. Sure enough a baby’s foot was visible and I was obligated to deliver in the back of the ambulance! Luckily, delivery went smoothly and the baby was doing fine. But now what?? The other twin is still really high and in breech position as well! Really requires an emergent c-section, but we are a long way from Fon Pariesien yet. Nothing else we can do but keep heading down. Hopefully, we can at least get the mom closer to help in case there’s a complication with her. A little ways out of Foret we stopped again. Now I can tell the baby has descended some…still breech position. At this point, if there’s any hope at all for this baby… I have to try and and get the baby delivered now. It wasn’t easy… because in addition to the high breech position and a very exhausted mama…the cord also happened to be wrapped around the baby’s foot. I was eventually able to free the cord and gently get the baby to descend. More of a miracle versus skill here! and of course many prayers were offered! Both babies seemed to be doing ok so we headed back to the clinic to meet Mis Vitani.

Healthcare Challenges

Lately we have been seeing a number of patients that require a higher level of care. What do you do with a patient in heart failure, edemetous to the point of not being able to stand up, and wounds to both legs with gangrene setting in? Her son came to me and asking for help. She had been sick for a few years now and progressively worse. I suspect heart failure due to a heart attack in the past. She couldn’t make it to the clinic in her current state and was begging me to come see her. We walked up the steep path to her small house, barely more than a stones throw from the clinic. Just inside the front door seated on a bed in a dark room sat this dear lady. Grossly edematous and very labored respirations noted. She spoke in one word sentences but otherwise seemed happy to see me. Upon assessment, I found her hypertensive and an irregular heart rate 180-190 beats per minute! Also oxygen sat less than desirable. Her legs were dripping with fluid and the skin was tight and sluffing off in some places, revealing infected wounds I won’t describe here. The son told me they had been to multiple Dr’s and the last time they went for help they were refused. We cleaned and dressed her wounds the best we could. I also started her on a diuretic to remove fluid and medication to control her heart rate. A few days later she was feeling lots better and no longer in distress. We continued to dress her wounds but really the infection had been there so long she was risking losing her legs…or her life at this point. The real turning point occured when I realized the family was smearing tobacco and all sorts of other remedies on the wounds! The infection suddenly got much worse! People still tend to use their own remedies even when they are instructed not to. Maybe they feel like it’s worked in the past or they just don’t really know of anything else to do? It’s a hopeless feeling I’m sure! At this point the wounds need to be surgically cleaned or more likely below knee amputation. The family was encouraged because she was feeling much better with the medications and now they were desperate to find help for her infected legs. I messaged a few hospitals and determined University Hospital in Port would be the best option. Many hospitals have been destroyed by gangs and forced to close…which has really impacted health care in Haiti. We gave the patient and her son a ride down to Fon Parisien. From there they took public transportation through numerous gang territories before arriving at the hospital in the heart of Port Au Prince. We still aren’t travelling past Fon Parisien with our ambulance due to safety concerns. She doesn’t have the same opportunities we have in North America…but yet she has been given a chance and hope for healing.

NEW SOLAR POWER INSTALL

Bodie has been busy with various maintenance projects at the clinic. We did get the new solar power system installed and it’s working great! We have considerably more power and have enough reserve to make it through some cloudy days and easily run the oxygen concentrator all night. The entire system has been upgraded. We started by installing twelve 700watt panels (8.4kw). The panels are mounted on a separate roof. Keeping the panels off the clinic roof will help prevent future problems with the structure. The solar wires are ran in conduit and feed a Sol Ark 12kw inverter and 4 lithium batteries giving us 20 kilo watt hours of reserve. The lithium batteries are maintenance free and should last for 10 years or more. With the old system, one cloudy morning and we needed to run the generator! It’s nice to know that anytime (day or night) we will have plenty of power for medical emergencies. Awhile back, the oxygen concentrator ran all night and in the morning we still had 80% battery life!

Attending to the Injured

Confidence Health Center continues to be a bright spot in the community. Many times just treating basic problems like high blood pressure or providing medications for “grip” (common cold). Each week, our vaccine nurse is administering pediatric vaccines. In this low resource setting, preventing illness is one of the best things we can do! Our nurses are available 24/7 for any emergencies and their dedication to this work is amazing! I’m happy to assist with after hour calls, but some times I don’t hear until the next day about some of the cases they were treating.

A Leaky Roof

In my last update, I mentioned the clinic roof is urgently needing repair. We have been getting some rain off and on and there are many places where water is entering. Most concerning is where water is dripping in the pharmacy and medication storage area. There’s also quite a bit of condensation inside the clinic that’s causing the purlins to rust. It became evident that trying to patch the old roof wouldn’t be very successful, and the clinic would really benefit with a new roof system that includes a moisture barrier. After some research, we were able to source some suitable roofing materials in the DR. The metal sheets were considerably thicker than what could be found in Haiti. I was also able to find synthetic roofing underlayment and 3/4” plywood. We hired 4 local boys to help Bodie and I with the project. One of the biggest challenges with the project was working around the rain that came nearly every afternoon! We removed the roof in sections and started some mornings at 4am. By early afternoon we needed to have everything covered again. The clinic remained open the entire time and the nurses moved to different rooms to continue consulting patients. Our local roofers did a great job following orders and the finished product looks great! The new roof is a significant improvement and many people commented on how much warmer and drier the clinic feels.

I wanted to thank everyone that donated to Regi’s eye injury. Regi is a youth boy that lost sight in one eye from a soccer ball injury. He was able to have surgery on the injured eye to remove the cataract. He reports his vision is improving. In order for him to get help, a friend had to take him on motorcycle to Jacmel. The trip was about 12hrs one way and they traveled on some of the roughest mountain roads in Haiti…with parts of the journey at night and in the rain. He will need to follow up again soon and possibly require another operation. Without your donation this would not have been possible.

Well I guess that wraps things up for now. My family and I are safely home after a 3 month stay and grateful for the time we were able to spend in Oriani. Although we are back home, the work at the clinic continues every day. May you remember the Haitian people and the challenges they face. Thanks again to everyone who supports this mission through prayers, encouragement, and generosity.