Bonjour from Petit Goave! We arrived here on Wednesday afternoon after the 2 ½ hour drive on roads that make the potholes on PA roads look like small ruts. Bruce and I are familiar with this drive, but it was a new experience for Randy and Chris as they quickly found out that Dramamine is your friend in Haiti if you are prone to motion sickness. Needless to say we arrived safely at the Our Lady of Assumption Parish, located in the middle of town, which is home to about 120,000 people. As we arrived in the parish, we were greeted by friends that we had made before, along with Father Bonafus, the main priest at the parish. Our accommodations are the usual 8 person tent set up in the parish courtyard. As the evening goes on and we get settled in we are notified of an ill person upstairs in the parish. Apparently this was an understatement, as the patient was completely unresponsive and febrile. Just as we would at home, Bruce, Chris, Randy and I switched to medical providers. After we established 2 IV’s we were yelling for a ride to the hospital which was about 7 blocks away. There are no ambulances that you can call for in Petit Goave so someone had run to the hospital to get help. Needless to say, we needed transportation as soon as possible as the patient was seizing and we had no medication available to help her. We flagged a car driving by and they stopped. It was a Suzuki Samari; therefore I had to hold the patient on my lap in the front seat as Bruce rode in the back seat holding the two IV bags. As the patient seized 3 times while enroute to the hospital, the driver drove faster as I screamed “VIET!” which means fast in French. Once we arrived at the hospital, everything became very difficult. No doctors or nurses and no one spoke English. As we are asking for help and realizing that there was none, we began to search for medicine and oxygen. We found the only oxygen cylinder…….but no medication. Therefore we knew that we had to get her 104 fever down. We started to cut up sheets and towel and drenching them with water and putting them on her then proceeded to pour water all over her. As we were doing this, we had all of the patients in the hospital and their families staring in silence at two crazy Americans running yelling and pouring water over a seizing, unconscious patient. Thank God that it worked and we were able to break the fever and she regained consciousness just as Chris and Randy arrived. The German doctor finally arrived shortly after that. We will never complain about American hospitals again. God bless the sick people in Haiti as the medical care is minimal at best. I’m glad that everything worked out well.
Thursday Bruce and I went to visit all of the clinics and medical centers that we worked at in March. A lot of the tent villages had moved and the one clinic that we worked at no longer provided medical care, but we were able to find the children that we fell in love with! They recognized us and came running yelling Bonjour Shelly, Bonjour Bruce. It was wonderful to see them, and even better to see that they remembered us. Again, they are still hungry and very poor but they have smiles that will melt your heart. We will set up a clinic in that area to provide care to these children and their families who have had no medical care since we were there in March.
Besides that all is well here. We will try to post when we can, but internet access is difficult to find. Please pray for good health and food for the children of Haiti. Au Revoir for now, Shelly
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