Tent City Nursing

I was able to go out again this week to Kanaan, the tent city, to do another clinic. The theme this week was scabies and teen pregnancy. No comment.

The team that Awaken Haiti had in this month was from Canada. They built this blue building which will serve as a Kindergarten.  It was literally built it in 4 days. All that was in place before they came was the cement floor. They do such amazing work. The large brown building in the background serves as the church/school for some of the citizens on Kanaan. 

Some of the Kindergartners who will be profitted from all the hard work.

This is one of the patients who came in to the clinic. She has 1 year old twins with some of the worst asthma I have seen and I have seen a lot here. The allergies are horrible and then the tent city is located in an are with NO trees or any other kind of green stuff. There is dust everywhere.

Anyways, as we were walking to lunch she called us over to her house, this tent is about 8x8. I am not sure who else lives there besides her and her two babies. But I do know I would probably consider it too small for our family to even camp in (that is if I went camping and after this 6 months I will not be for a while, if ever). Anyways, she wanted money for milk for her kids. It was heart breaking. Here is this poor woman in dire circumstances asking for money for milk to feed her kids. I wish I could have given her something more sustainable. The worst part is at the time I did not give her anything, but then I went home and felt so badly about it we stopped there the next day to give her some.

 Now, remember these circumstances and check out the look on this womans face. Pure happiness. This is what I see over and over when I am seeing people in their real lives. Life is hard here, circumstances are not only "not ideal" they are bad, very bad. But despite it all people are happy.

Tent City Nursing

Saturday Rachel and I were able to go out to the city of Kanaan again and do a medical clinic. It is always a humbling experience to "play a  doctor on TV". Luckily the patients are pre-screened and most people are there with colds or allergies (imagine living in a dust filled tent). On Saturday we saw 33 people. It was a busy day. Awaken Haiti tries to run the clinic when they have teams in. Most of the teams help with the building and the rest help in the clinic. One time there was even another medical person there that was great. 

This is the view from the "clinic" (they are going to begin construction on a real clinic in June.  Until then, we use one of their houses they are currently constructing). The house pictured is one of the nicer houses as it has a tin roof. That is really great as we are not in rainy season. You can not believe some of the houses in these tent cities. 

This is the inside of one of the nicest houses. As you can see, it is big enough for a queen size bed and a table and chairs. There is a story behind this picture which I have debated about telling for sometime. But in the spirit of telling about Haiti, I feel that I need to share. 

This is the home of Suzette. Suzette is dying of ovarian cancer. There is nothing to be done here which is the most frustrating part of doing medicine here. There is no money to pay for the care that is needed and even if there was, there are not the services that are so needed. (As I write this President Martally is in a Miami hospital.  Now if there is not even a place that the president can go for good medical care within his country, the country has a problem).

Anyway Suzette, Deb (one of the founders of Awaken Haiti) wanted to introduce me to her. So we walked to her house. All the kids were with us as we were on our way to the beach so we brought them. Suzette talked about how God spoke to her in her dreams. She talked about how he had guided her on how to work with her pain. The things God has told her to do were text book medicine. 

She also told us how she had dreamed we would visit. She knew she would be seeing "ti moun blan" (white children) in her home. I imagine this would stand out in a dream. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life to hear this woman talk about how God talks to her in her dreams. It reminded me of Joseph in the Old Testament. 

As we were getting ready to leave, I was the last one out the door with BJ in hand. As those of you who know BJ know he is about as friendly as a Komodo Dragon. But I felt really prompted that I should tell BJ to give Suzette a hug. This was a little like asking a horse to fly, but he willingly ran over and hugged her. She very kindly said to me "I knew he would do that, I saw it in my dream." I am not sure it gets anymore powerful than that. 

Again, you go into these situations and think you are going to be the one serving and end up with these kinds of experiences for you and your family. 

Kanaan Clinic

Kait, Rachel, and I were able to go out and do a clinic in the tent city on Friday. Justin was able to work from home because "Carnival" (aka Mardi Gras) starts here on Tuesday so traffic is bad. We battled traffic and did the clinic. It was really rewarding and fulfilling.

The group "Awaken Haiti" is working in a small section of this tent city. They are partnered with a pastor and built a school which functions as a church on Sunday and a small building they are using as a clinic at times right now. They are planning to build a larger clinic this summer.

One thing that was different about working in this clinic and where I worked at home, is praying with the patients. I have to admit at first the ER nurse in me thought this would only slow down the number of people we could see, but then I did it.

I prayed only with two this time. One sticks out as it was a lady who was there in poor health due to lack of water and food. She had high blood pressure and some other issues. I asked her what specifically we could pray for her about. She said "please pray I will have enough water to be healthy, enough food to fill my belly, and that I will have a house soon so I can get out of my tent." Ugh, let me just tell you it was tough to choke these words out. I have never asked for these things in a prayer, only offered gratitude that I have them. How blessed we are.

Counseling with patients.

This little girl found me while I was eating lunch, something I feel guilty doing as I have been seeing people all morning who are sick because they do not have enough food. She was begging for my chips.

The team that Awaken Haiti had in this weekend will build 2 of these houses in 3 days.

The city of Kanaan. You can see our "truck" parked by one of the buildings they built.

Some of the "nicer tents" here. You can see a Mama and her children outside trying to stay cool in the shade of the tent.

A typical tent house.

Awaken Haiti

Today I had the chance to meet with the organizers of a group here called Awaken Haiti. They have an orphanage here, but have more recently gotten set up with a minister here who works in a really large tent city. The tent city is in an area called Canaan, an estimated 5,000 people live there. Awaken Haiti works within a small "community" serving about 130 families. They have built a school that functions as a church on the weekend. The school serves about 120 children and offers a feeding program so these children are fed everyday. This is not your typical post-earthquake tent city. It was founded prior and is mostly people who are getting out of the city, it ca be found on the mountain side on the way to the beach. Most people have been given or purchased land there and are trying to build a house. If you look back at the picture from the beach,I took one of the area that I believe is Canaan.
So how did I get involved. Long story short. They had a nurse working with them who was injured and had to go back to the States. They have teams come in once a month and they try to "run medical clinics" for the people of their "community in Canaan". So I was asked to help. Today I went to their house and was in awe of the pharmacy and mini-ER they have. It was field hospital heaven. So next week while my sister is here we will go out with a team who will be building houses. We will run the medical clinic. Don't fear too much for these peoples lives, the minister pre-screens the people and only those with very obvious, treatable disease processes will be brought to me. Apparently he hands out tickets in advance and then those are the people we see that day. So not a lot of "urgent care" per say, but I am super excited and continue to be amazed at the wonderful service opportunities here.